


How To Save The World With No One Even Realizing

by IncompleteSentanc (Erava)



Series: A How To Guide To Shinobi Life [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: AKA The Worst Four Months of Minato's Life, Abuse of italics, And Everyone Else's Too, And Professional Eyeball Removal, Assorted Characters - Freeform, Bittersweet Ending, Canonically Accurate OP Team 7, Canonically Violent Sasuke, Cussing, Dark Comedy, Dark Humor, Doing Super Villainy Stuff, Equally Violent Sakura, Gen, Like Murder, Poor Minato, Poor Obito, Potty Mouth Narrator, RegularBadass!Shikamaru, Saving The World One Murder At A Time, SuperBadass!Naruto, SuperBadass!Sakura, SuperBadass!Sasuke, Team 7 As Super Villains, Time Travel Fix-It, Various Jinchuuriki, Villainy, time-travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7569610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erava/pseuds/IncompleteSentanc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minato knows at the beginning of the week that it's going to be a hellish one. Mostly because it starts with the kidnapping of one of his two remaining students, only a year after they'd lost the first one. He just doesn't realize at the time that it's not going to be a hellish week - it's going to be hell for quite a bit longer than that.</p><p>It all starts with Rin's kidnapping, and her subsequent rescue at the hands of a mysteriously appearing, monstrously strong, murderously violent woman.</p><p>A woman with cotton candy pink hair.</p><p>It only devolves from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To the best of my knowledge, I have stuck 100% with canon in regards to Team 7's abilities. The only embellishment I added, which does play a big part of this story, is the fact that Sakura now uses a distinctive sword.
> 
> I had no choice. Kishimoto made her boring as heck. She was literally just a pink haired Tsunade, so I gave that girl a sword, and bam. Distinctive.
> 
> (Forgot to add: Sakura's dressed like in Boruto the Movie, Sasuke's dressed like in the manga epilogue, and Naruto's dressed like he did in the Pain Invasion. Because I can do what I want with my universe, dang it. ...Shikamaru's dressed like he did in all of Shippuden, too, I guess)

Rin stares up at the rocks above her, her head spinning horribly. _Captured,_ she thinks miserably. **_Again_** , and the thought causes her pain, because last time it had cost Obito his life. Her skin itches, and something cold and wet running down her thigh has her snapping her eyes open in alarm, heart leaping to her throat. She’s _naked_ , straight up _naked,_ and her fear only deepens by the sight of black lines painted into her skin, dried and old, with a shinobi crouching at her legs and painting fresh ones down it.

“Oh! She’s awake.” Another shinobi says and Rin, cover already blown before she could _think_ to keep it, lifts her head. The large cave is _filled_ with shinobi - Kiri, from the looks, and some of them seem to be their ANBU equivalent. “Good morning, sunshine.” The shinobi mocks, stepping up to her feet and staring down at her through a mask. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” He adds with a pointed look _down_ that has the blood rushing from her face. “You aren’t here for that. No, it’s even _better_.”

Rin can’t help but cringe, trying to lean away, trying to curl up to shield her _assets_ , but she can’t move anything but her head. Her fear hits an entirely new level, almost choking in it’s intensity.

“Shut up, Namishi.” The one painting, now down her foot, hisses irritably. “Brag and bluster when it’s done. It’ll be easier when she doesn’t know what to fight.”

“Hmph. Or maybe you just don’t have the stomach for this.” The masked one, Namishi, snorts before turning on his heel. He heads for what looks like might have once been the mouth of the cave but has since been collapsed, hands in his pockets.

Only for the wall of rubble to suddenly shatter, raining rubble down on the ANBU and the other shinobi unfortunate enough to be near him. “What-” The man painting her lurches away in alarm as a pink-haired woman darts into the cave and pauses just long enough to look at them with big, innocent eyes that send chills down Rin’s spine.

“Oops. Am I interrupting something?” She asks sweetly, drawing a katana from her back.

For a moment, all Rin can see is the crimson streak left behind from the blade as the woman darts through the cave. _She’s almost as fast as sensei,_ Rin thinks dizzyingly as blood - an incredible amount of blood - flies through the air with every death.

It takes _seconds_.

All she can think about is that they were _ANBU_ , and it took _seconds_. The mysterious, pink-haired woman pauses when the last one drops, finally going still long enough for Rin to actually _see_ her.

Her hair is short and loose, and it’s a soft, cotton pink where the bloodspray isn’t staining it red. It’s almost laughable - though maybe that’s the terror trying to bubble out of her - how _gentle_ a color it is. She wears a sleeveless, high-collared, qipao-esque dress that’s a deep, crimson color, dark enough to barely show the blood spattering it. It stops just short of her bellybutton, veering around to stretch down to her knees in the back. She has white pants on under that, mid-calf length, and black _high heels_ , of all things.

The woman sighs and crouches down over the nearest body, reaching out with black gloved hands to grab their pant leg - which she then uses to wipe off her sword.

Her dark red sword, dark enough that it doesn’t look very different without the blood on it, that leaves a faint streak with every motion.

_Chakra blade,_ Rin realizes, stunned.

Who in the world is this mystery woman?

Chakra blades are _rare_ , incredibly expensive, and _stunningly_ difficult to imbue with a chakra-type. Kakashi’s white one had been imbued over two generations with lightning-type chakra, giving it the white coloring it had. If she had to guess, she’d have to assume the mystery woman’s was imbued with fire-type, giving it the red coloring.

But her confused thoughts stutter to a sudden stop when the woman stands back up and turns to walk towards her. “Hey, there.” She greets, and the smile she flashes Rin is warm but it’s not at all reassuring, especially not with her next words. “Don’t worry. You’ll be home when you wake up.”

Before Rin can do more than flinch with wide, frightened eyes, the woman reaches out with a bloody, leather-gloved hand and presses it to her forehead.

Nauseatingly intense drowsiness hits her with the force of a chakra-punch to the face, and her eyes roll back all on their own.

“We’re clear.” She hears the woman say, her voice losing all warmth and replacing it with frigid hardness.

She’s unconscious an instant later, unable to fight it any longer.

 

When she wakes up, it’s in one of the large jutsu rooms in the hospital basement, Minato studiously painting seals all around her while Kushina carefully examines her chest.

Rin can’t quite help the soft hitch in her breathing, confusion quickly transforming into alarm, and Kushina’s head snaps up to look at her face. “Hey, hey, calm down.” Kushina says quickly, which makes Minato whip around, and _oh god_.

She’s still naked. Someone had draped a thin cloth over her breasts and hips, but she’s still naked, and on top of the natural alarm and disgust at that, now Minato’s _right there_. Shame rushes through her, mixing with the terrified confusion gripping her, and nothing in the world could stop her eyes from tearing up.

Even so, Kushina instantly dabs a cloth at the corners of her eyes, allowing none of the tears to escape them. “Don’t cry, Rin.” She says, and it’s not a comforting tone of voice but a firm, grim command.

“You’re covered in seals, Rin.” Minato adds, very carefully kneeling at her other side, and the expression on his face is almost worse than what she’s already feeling.

It’s the same expression he’d worn when Obito died. Grim and tense with grief and anger all rolled into one.

But why? Why did he have reason to _grieve_? Had something happened?

She swallows thickly and belatedly tries to speak. “How…?” She manages to force out, but god, it’s hard to speak. She’s not entirely sure why, but she can only assume it as to do with the fact that she can't control her breathing for some reason.

“Kakashi brought you back, Rin.” Minato explains and Kushina makes a soft noise in the back of her throat before she shifts back again, leaning down to intently examine Rin’s stomach. “You were taken by Kiri. Do you remember that?” He asks, and with effort, she’s able to carefully nod once. “Great. They put a few seals on you that we’re working to get off, alright?” Minato says quietly and she grimaces deeply at that. “One of them’s a paralysis seal. That’s why you can’t move.”  
  
“Stolen right out of Uzushio, too.” Kushina adds darkly. “I’ll have it off in no time, Rin, don’t worry.” She says, but any attempt at reassurance is ruined by the way she and Minato exchange quick, grim looks at that.

“What?” Rin asks tightly and Minato’s frown deepens a little.

“There was another seal on you, Rin.” Minato explains slowly. “On your heart.”

Which… how? Rin tries to ask it with her eyes and Minato sighs heavily.

“I don’t know how it was there, or how it was removed, but whatever it was, it was… a very nasty curse seal, Rin. Whatever it was, it was powerful enough to leave chakra traces all over you. That’s why you can’t cry right now. We can’t tamper with any of the seals from that fuinjutsu until the chakra’s gone, and it’s hard to figure what seals went with what jutsu.”  
  
“I think I’m ready.” Kushina says suddenly, interrupting Minato, and the blonde pauses to look at her. “Should only take a moment to remove it - and painlessly, to boot.” Kushina elaborates reassuringly, and Rin offers her a weak smile until Minato looks back down at her.

“Don’t move, Rin, even after it’s gone. You can’t smudge these seals - we don’t know what it’ll let that leftover chakra do.” Minato instructs sternly, and all she can do is nod at that.

“Alright. This’ll itch - _don’t scratch_.” Kushina warns.

Before she can even consider reacting, there’s a flare of chakra and her stomach tingles _maddeningly_.

It lasts only a moment before warmth spreads across her chest and suddenly she can _breathe_. “Oh thank god,” Rin exhales before she can help herself and Kushina flashes a quick grin.

“I also go by Kushina.” She jokes.

Minato’s lips give a faint twitch before he clears his throat and the slight lightness of the mood crashes down again. “I need you to tell me everything you remember, Rin.”

He’s kind enough to give her a moment to think. Kushina steps back, examining and then slowly painting more seals on the floor around her, and Minato quietly watches her while Rin gathers her thoughts.

She orders them as best as she can, and then starts to speak. “I was taken out of the camp. I don’t remember how - I only woke up once, and it was after I was taken. They were quick to knock me back out. When I woke up again, I was in a cave - a big one, and they’d collapsed the opening to it.” Rin recalls as steadily as she can. “I was… they’d stripped me, and one of them was painting seals down my legs. Another one of them mocked me, saying something about it being worse than whatever I was imagining. The one painting the seals told him to shut up, that ‘it’ would be easier if I didn’t know what to fight.” Rin explains slowly, shaking her head helplessly at Minato’s questioning expression. “I don’t know what they meant. Almost immediately after that…” She pauses, brow furrowing.

It didn’t seem real, to be honest. It had been so quick and so… bizarre. “There was a woman. She blew the cave entrance open again and crushed several with the rubble. She had a sword, sensei.” Rin adds quickly, because that was definitely a defining feature. “I think it was a chakra blade, because it was dark red and left streaks behind like Kakashi’s white one did.”  
  
His brow furrows at this, lips twisting down grimly, but he doesn’t say anything so she sweeps on.

“She killed them. All of them. They were ANBU, but she took them out in _seconds_ , sensei. She was almost as fast as you. There had to be at least twenty ANBU in there, but they were dead in seconds.” Rin recalls, shaking her head incredulously. “And then she just walked over to me when it was done. She said, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be home when you wake up’, and then put her hand on my forehead.” Rin pauses, swallowing at the rush of anxiety hitting her. All she’d done was _touch_ her and she was out, completely helpless. Who knew what the mystery woman had done to her? “Then I woke up here.”

For a very long moment, Minato stares at her in tense silence, his eyes narrowed in consideration.

“...She had pink hair.” Rin remembers belatedly, frowning softly. “Bubble-gum pink. Short hair, down to her chin - and I don’t think she was alone. I remember…” Rin says softly, trying to recall the exact words. “I remember she said ‘we’re clear’, right before I passed out.”

Another long silence, and then Minato expels a heavy breath. “I see. Thank you, Rin, this’ll help us.” He says, but the dangerous, dark look he exchanges with Kushina makes her doubt his truthfulness. Minato shakes his head once and then pushes to his feet, picking back up the brush he’d discarded some time ago. “Right. Let’s get that chakra out of you, hm?”

 

* * *

 

Obito could honestly say he was _not_ expecting the massive boulder blocking the entrance of the cave to suddenly explode.

In fact, it was the very last thing he expected to happen.

Followed immediately by the single most confusing, terrifying, and downright _weird_ experience of his entire life - and that included the experience that put him in this cave to begin with.

The boulder explodes, and two streaks of light - one a smooth red, the other a jumping blue - rush through the flying rubble and dust, and before Obito can do more than widen his eyes, the red streak hits Guruguru and turns him into a disgusting, gooey splatter on the distant wall. “...Ew.” A woman’s voice says emphatically, and Obito turns his head to see the blue streak standing over Madara’s sitting form, a lightning-charged sword held to his throat.

“What-” Obito starts to ask, breathless and gasping because _what the fuck just happened_ , and promptly shuts up when the red-streak turns towards him.

She’s not red. Her dress is red, and there’s an alarming amount of blood-red color splattered in her bubblegum pink hair - but the streak comes from her dark red sword, which is suddenly held in an inch from his eyes. “Hello.” The woman greets with a smile.

He doesn’t move. He barely even breathes, and it takes all his willpower to not look cross-eyed at the sword between his eyes.

Madara is dead silent, and whoever the woman’s companion is is equally so.

He can’t help it. “What?” Obito manages to whimper, confused and more than a little bit completely terrified, and the woman tilts her head a little, smiling even warmer.

It is quite possibly the scariest thing he’s ever seen, and he thought Madara was a real shinigami not too long ago.

“No need to worry, Obito-chan.” The woman chirps just as warmly as her smile.

_Oh my god she’s a psychopath,_ Obito realizes. “How do you-”  
  
The blade twitches, turning ever so slightly, and Obito shuts up again.

“Good boy.” The woman approves.

He’d be more offended if he wasn’t so afraid of breathing.

“He’s not here.” The mystery man says suddenly, dark and angry, and the woman hums lightly, her smile fading.

“Any sign?”  
  
“Not a damn thing.” The man growls.

The woman frowns, her bright green eyes suddenly even more deadly, and she lightly taps Obito’s cheek with the flat of her sword tip.

He blinks violently, but doesn’t flinch, afraid for his face. And life in general, really.

“Don’t. Move.” The woman instructs, slow and firm, and then she whips around.

He tries to slump the moment her back is turned, relief almost crippling him, but he actually _can’t_ move. He physically can’t move at all other than to breathe and blink, frozen with his bad arm lifting him halfway up onto his elbow.

The very brief moment of relief is completely ruined by the terror slamming into him at full force again. _What’s happening?_ Obito wonders, desperately trying to at least _twitch_ , but nothing. Not a damn thing.

He watches the mystery woman walk up and stop next to the man, who Obito can now see has spiked, black hair, though his body is hidden by a heavy, shapeless cloak. The only part of him visible is the side of his face and the arm extended, holding his lightning-sparking blade to Madara’s neck. Madara, whose skin is pale and his breathing even raspier than usual. He actually… he actually looks _afraid_ , Obito realizes with a horrified, sick kind of awe.

What the hell had the man done to make Madara look like _that_?

“That’s very unfortunate for you, Madara-sama.” The woman says calmly, sheathing her sword over her shoulder. She leans forward then, resting her hands on her knees and leaning until they’re at eye level. “That would have been your only chance at redemption. Tell me, have you realized yet? Just how… _deluded_ you are?”

“Not very likely.” The man drawls before Madara could possibly answer. _Then_ they pause for a response, of which does not come. “I told you so.”  
  
“So you did.” The woman agrees mildly. “Fine. If he doesn’t even know, then I don’t care. Do what you want, but leave his face alone.” The woman says as she straightens up and turns back around towards Obito. She pauses only long enough to pass a scroll to the man before she heads towards Obito, stopping when she’s right in front of him.

He can’t see anything around her, but he _hears_ the wet, slick slice of a blade through flesh and bone, and salty saliva pools into his mouth. _Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up._ Obito tells himself firmly, because he doesn't even want to think about what that would lead to when he can’t even _open his mouth_.

“Don’t forget to wipe the sword off.” The woman says distractedly, reaching out to put her hand against Obito’s chest. He cringes, nausea only growing, at the sensation of her chakra invading his system. It’s a soothing sensation, but he doesn’t _like it_ , because who knows what she’s doing? Or planning to do? “We don’t know what he has in him.”  
  
“Tch. Easier for me to just use your sword, then.” The man scoffs from across the cave and the woman rolls her eyes, then reaches up and cups Obito’s face.

His breathing stills as her fingers gently but firmly prod all along his face, a small, thoughtful frown tugging at her red-painted lips. Then she lightly thumbs his upper eyelids and pushes them up. Obito _really_ cringes then, knowing she’s staring into an empty socket on his left side. He hasn’t seen it himself - now that’d really be puke worthy - but it can’t possibly _not_ be disgusting. “It’s a good thing Naruto isn’t here.” She mutters, nose wrinkling, before releasing her grip on his eyelids. “He’d probably go around restoring things without thinking them through, and then we’d really have to kill you.”

_What_.

Obito’s brain stalls for a second.

Sure, it was terrifying having her loom all dangerous and psychopathic over him, but for her to _outright say that_ is an unwelcome kind of shock. Something clearly shows on his face because she lightly pats his cheek before pulling her hands back. “Don’t worry, Obito-chan. I’m a medic.” She says, and smiles warmly again - but this time with a hint of genuine gentleness that actually does put him a little bit at ease.

At least until she steps to the side and the man stabs him through the chest.

For a moment, all he can do is stare wide eyed at the lightning dancing up the blade, a horrible, sickening sensation spreading through his chest.

And then he’s gone.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up in a clearing in the trees, the pink-haired woman sitting casually a few feet away. “Oh my god,” Obito gasps in a breath he _shouldn’t be able to take_ , sitting up and scooting frantically away from her. He doesn’t stop until his back hits a tree trunk, and then then he only pauses when he realizes that to get around it, he’d have to turn his back to her.

_Then_ he slumps, his heart hammering against his ribs, and stares at her with one wide, terrified eye.

She smiles sadly at him, genuine and so much less terrifying than before, but still pretty damn scary because she _murdered him_.

“How- How am-”

“Medic-nin.” The woman offers apologetically, waving a hand vaguely. “I healed you. We didn’t want you dead.” The woman says, her smile dying away, and the hard, contemplative way she looks at him is almost more frightening than her earlier smiles. “Tell me, Obito-chan. Did you choose to stay with that withered old monster?” She asks in a perfectly controlled voice.

She doesn’t even have to _do anything_ , and he’s completely terrified by her presence.

“No!” It’s both humbling and shaming to be so afraid of her so easily, and Obito has to take a moment to just _breathe_ before he can try speaking further. “No, I can’t- I can’t walk. Not far.” He explains shakily, taking a ragged breath and trying to at _least_ steady his voice. “My… my leg. It’s messed up.”  
  
Which was an understatement, but ‘crushed by a boulder with most of the thigh replaced by creepy monster flesh’ was a much longer story to tell. He sure wasn’t going to tell _her,_ anyways.

“Hmph. Well, lucky for you, then, kid.” The woman hums, rising to her feet, and _oh god,_ his blood pressure rises with her. She walks slowly towards him, and it takes _everything he has_ not to turn and run like a complete, miserable coward. She crouches once she’s reached him, extending a hand, and Obito blinks stupidly at the scroll held in it. “This is for your Hokage, Obito-chan. Tell him it’s a gift, free of charge.” The woman says, and there’s that goddamned smile again, sending chills down his spine. She sets it on his chest, his hands clenched into fists at his side, and holds the scroll there with a fingertip.

“Tell him we appreciate the delicacy of the situation.” The woman instructs slowly. “And then tell him to stay out of our way.” The woman adds, her smile going away. It isn’t replaced by anything more terrifying, but her emerald green eyes _burn_ with the intensity of the stare she locks on him. All he can do is hold her gaze and hope he doesn’t look at pathetically weak as he feels. “We have a purpose. We will not be stopped.” She says in that silky, deadly calm tone he’s only ever heard Orochimaru use as effectively as she does.

Then she lets go of the scroll, which drops into his lap, and rises to her feet. She pauses to brush off her knees, then frowns down at him. “Though with any luck, we won’t have any reason to return to the Land of Fire anyways. Konoha’s a kilometer that way - the path is only about a hundred and thirty yards _that_ way,” The woman says, gesturing to each direction. “I suggest you pick the path. Good luck, Obito-chan - I’ll be very irritated if you don’t get home safe.”

And before he can decipher _that_ bizarre new personality twist, she turns and vanishes with a quick  _shunshin_.

He scrambles to his feet. It hurts, pain lancing up his thigh at the sudden movement and pressure, but he ignores it. He ignores it, and Obito limps as fast and as far the fuck away from the trees as he can get.

It takes almost ten minutes to go a hundred and thirty yards. It’s _miserable_ , and Obito manages to feel all the more pathetic by the end of it, even if he is a little bit proud to have made it.

Of course, by ‘made it’, he means that he pretty much faceplants on the path and tries not to breathe in too much dirt. And then he valiantly passes out.

He wakes up to hands on his shoulders, and his instinctive reaction is to flinch away with a sharp, breathless gasp. The hands abruptly go still and his eye flies open to see two shinobi he doesn’t recognize leaning over him, and Obito wants to cry at the sight of the familiar hitai-ates on their foreheads. “Don’t touch my arm.” Obito begs them, shaky and rough, because that would be the last damned straw. Tugging it too much was still capable of yanking the damn thing off, and now he couldn’t-

He couldn’t _replace it_.

“Shit, kid.” The one gripping his shoulders murmurs, grimacing, and shifts his hand away from Obito’s right shoulder. “Got a name, there?”

Obito closes his eye for a moment, taking a deep, steadying breath, and it’s so much easier now that Crazy McPinkhair is gone. When he opens his eye again, it’s with his Sharingan burning, and the man tenses a little in surprise. “Obito Uchiha. I’ve been held captive.” He forces out as steadily as he can, then lifts up the scroll the woman had dropped on him. “For the Hokage,” he adds tiredly, and the shinobi looks up at his partner with a grimace.

“Right. Let’s go, then.” He says, shifting his hand under Obito’s knees and lifting him up. He’s too tired to be indignant about it, and a moment later the shinobi’s shifting him onto his partner’s back in a much more dignifying position. Obito can’t help but slump in utter relief.

He can’t help the way his eye burns with tears, relief and grief hitting him in equal, overwhelming amounts. All he can do is close his eye and rest his forehead against the shinobi’s shoulder, the familiar texture of the flak vest driving the point further.

He’s going home. He’s really going _home_.

 

* * *

 

Konoha is quiet, and in a very bad way. The kind that makes you think, _it’s too quiet. Something terrible is happening._

In reality, though few people would ever realize it, something _great_ is happening.

Deep down in his evil little lair of a home, Danzo Shimura’s head is being chopped off.

No one comes to save him. Not even his little brainwashed servant children, as they’re all mysteriously unconscious in the hallways. They’ll wake up with no memory of how they even got where they were, much less what took them all out. They’ll wake up, and they’ll finally sound the alarm, but it’ll be far, far too late.

By then, Danzo’s body will be a fried, twitching body on the floor, and his head will be perched on his own sword, sticking up out of his desk like a pike.

And stuck to his forehead will be a small note reading,

_‘If you want to know why I did this, take a look into his memories.’_

(Three days later, Inoichi Yamanaka will stumble out of the autopsy room and vomit. Hiruzen Sarutobi will bow his head and wonder how he can still be so naive after a life as violent as he’s lived. No one will be able to say for sure who took out Danzo, but those very few who are in the know will be grateful for the mystery murderer.)

 

* * *

 

Obito wakes up in a hospital bed, which means two things.

One, someone used a jutsu on him, because there’s no way he slept through all that movement and also having his _clothes changed_.

Two, he’s not waking in T&I, so he figures they did something to determine that he is, in fact, that dead guy he was claiming to be.

He’s relieved at both things, because again: not in T&I, always something to be relieved about, and because _thank god, real clothing_ , and a real bed! With real sheets! And a real blanket!

Obito runs his fingers down the fabric, unable to quite contain his awe. His right arm is still attached, too, and an experimental wiggle of his toes confirms his leg is in good order as well. _Awesome_. He lifts his head a little to take a look at the room, and nearly swallows his tongue he flinches so hard.

Minato, lurking in the corner of the room, immediately looks stricken. “It’s alright, Obito, it’s just me.” he says quickly but _soothingly_ , and it makes Obito hiss his breath out through his teeth.

_When did I become such a damned coward_ , he can’t help but wonder bitterly. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” Obito says immediately, mostly to get that look off Minato’s face, but his sensei only looks more guilty before he glances grimly down at the floor. Obito watches him for a moment, taking in the exhausted way the man holds his shoulders, the guilty way he frowns at the floor, and the overall mood of… severity he exudes. “Here to interrogate me?” Obito asks quietly, and he’s far more exhausted than he could ever be bitter - but it still makes Minato grimace deeper.

Still, the man swallows hard and straightens up, sighing heavily. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.” Minato admits, his guilt draining away and replaced by grim resignation. He doesn’t move closer, though, and Obito…

Obito’s shamefully relieved by that.  
  
He doesn’t fully understand why. He was so happy at the idea of coming home, of seeing everyone again, and even now he desperately wants to hug the man - but not as desperately as he wants to put more distance between them. The room’s space isn’t enough - especially not with Minato subtly blocking his path to the door, making the fluttery, trapped sensation in Obito’s chest even worse.

Obito’s-...

He reaches up tentatively, his hand shaking, and very carefully presses down on his chest.

_Nothing_. Not a damn thing, not even the over sensitivity of freshly healed wounds. “They stabbed me.” He says incredulously, and Minato’s head snaps up at that.

“Who-” he starts, then cuts himself off and takes a deep breath. “Alright.” Minato says sternly enough that Obito’s attention automatically returns to the man, even as he fists the front of his gown and rubs his knuckles into the confusingly _normal_ feeling flesh. “Start from the beginning, Obito.” Minato instructs, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the wall.

Even with the distance, he feels uncomfortably _pressured_ , and he takes a moment to swallow thickly before he tries to speak. “He had servants.” Obito starts hoarsely, closing his eye and trying to figure out how to even describe the Zetsus. “One of them pulled me from the rubble and took me to him. They’re… made out of Hashirama cells. The same thing my-” Obito chokes off, taking another breath before he tries again. “The same thing he replaced my arm and- and my right side with. I couldn’t leave. I tried. He- he cut off part of my leg, so I couldn’t walk, so I- I tried to drag myself, but he blocked off the cave entrance.”

It hadn’t seemed so bad at the time. The initial rush of fear, the helplessness, that had been awful - but after those first couple of weeks, things hadn’t… _seemed_ so bad. But now, now that he’s speaking about it in the sanctity of Konoha, under Minato’s intense watch, it seems so much worse.

He was _safe_ here, he was _comfortable_ here, and that was making it all the more clear to him just how unsafe he’d been in that cave. Just how much of a prisoner he’d well and truly been.

It’s not a pleasant realization. It takes him time and effort to get through his tale of his time spent there, with multiple pauses to just _breathe_. But Minato doesn’t push him, doesn’t speak at _all_ as Obito details his… imprisonment.

“How did you get free?” Minato asks him at the end of his tale, and Obito lifts a hand to rub at his aching eye.  
  
“I don’t even know how to describe it. It came out of nowhere. We were.. It was all quiet. The Zetsus, they kept an eye on everything, but there was no warning. They must’ve killed them.” Obito realizes aloud, pausing, and once more Minato’s silent as he lets Obito gather his thoughts. “I was laying down. I’d already walked across the cave three times. The boulder, it just exploded. There was- they were so fast, all I could see was the streaks they left behind. One of them, a woman, took out the Zetsu watching me before the rubble even hit the ground - and the other went for Madara.”  
  
“I don’t know what he did to him. I didn’t hear anything at all, but the woman, she- she knew who I was. She blocked my sight of Madara and held a sword between my eyes and she said my name.” Obito says slowly, lowering his hand and opening his eye to stare at it unseeingly. How had she known his name, and how had he not noticed before hand?

Oh, right.

The terror. He almost forgot about that.

“She had a bright red sword. It left streaks behind, like Kakashi’s White Fang. She tapped me with it and told me to stay still, and I couldn’t move at all. I could blink, but that was it.” Obito recalls incredulously. “I don’t know how she did it. The man with her, somehow he scared the _hell_ out of Madara. I couldn’t see much of him - he wore a black cloak, but he had black, spiky hair, and used a sword-” Oh, God.

Used a sword that was probably going to haunt Obito’s dreams for the _rest of his damn life_.

“He used a sword, too, but it didn’t shimmer like hers did. He- he pushed lightning chakra across-” Obito chokes off, and it’s a lucky thing Minato’s so fast, because otherwise he’d puke all over his own pillow instead of into a teleporting emesis basin.

“Stop, Obito.” Minato says tiredly, but Obito shakes his head, spitting out foul saliva into the basin, which disappears a moment later - and then Minato’s at the foot of his bed, lips pressed hard together.

“I can do this.” Obito protests, setting his jaw, and Minato grimaces.

“I know you can, but is it worth it to force it now?” Minato points out quietly.

“Yes.” Obito snaps without hesitation, because if he does it _now_ , he won’t have to talk about it _late_. “He used lightning chakra down the length of the sword. He- I don’t understand the conversation, but he and the woman, they demanded to know about someone, a ‘him’, but I don’t know who. It was only me and the Zetsus ever in the cave.” He explains, shaking his head. “She was pissed. She mocked him for being deluded, then told the man to do what he wanted. She walked back over to me and I couldn’t see them anymore but- but she passed him a scroll, and I _know_ what I heard,” Obito says, and it’s suddenly hard to breathe. He looks up at Minato helplessly, deeply upset without understanding _why_. Surely he didn’t _mourn_ the man? “Madara’s dead, isn’t he? They killed him?” He asks tightly.

Minato’s lips press even harder together. Then he nods a slow, damning nod.

It hurts.

He doesn’t know why, but it hurts. He’s… he _grieves_ for the old, psychopathic bastard, and that’s more upsetting than the actual grief itself. “His _head_ was in the scroll?” Obito chokes out.

Minato reaches out to set a hand on Obito’s foot, and _god damn it_ , he can’t help but flinch away, jerking his leg up. All he can do is stare, wide-eyed and apologetic at the horrified face Minato makes for a split second. Then he goes carefully blank-faced again and takes a step back. “Wait. I’m sorry.” Obito says urgently, sitting up to reach for the man, and _wow_ is that a mistake. His head spins _violently_ and his chest twinges, and he suddenly finds himself staring up at the ceiling again, dizzy.

It feels like chakra exhaustion, which makes no sense _at all_.

“We’ll finish up tomorrow, Obito. Rest.” Minato says quietly.

It’s a statement to how good of an idea that is that Obito can’t even protest. All he can do is obediently close his eye again, and he’s asleep before the world can manage to stop spinning sickeningly around him.

 

* * *

  
  
The next day he feels… worse.

Sort of.

Like all the energy in the world has been sucked away.

It makes Minato watch him uncomfortably intently, and he brings a Yamanaka with him, too. He lurks in the corner, _really_ lurks, not like Minato-lurk, and it both makes it easier to ignore him and impossible to outright _forget_ he’s there.

“Start from where you left off. You heard the man kill Madara and the woman was in front of you.” Minato instructs softly.

Obito doesn’t close his eye this time, because it makes it too easy to picture the memories. Instead he stares intently at his hands, his right arm carefully bandaged from shoulder to fingertip. “She grabbed me. Started feeling my chest and face, I don’t know why. She - she peeled my right eye open and-” Obito pauses for a split second, remembering the weirdness she’d said after that. “She said, ‘It’s a good thing Naruto isn’t here’.” Obito recites slowly, trying to remember it word for word, and he doesn’t notice the way Minato stiffens at the name. “She said something really weird. ‘He’d go around… restoring everything’?” Obito tests the words and then nods when they sound right.

“Yeah. ‘He’d go around restoring everything, and then we’d really have to kill you’.” He _does_ notice Minato tensing at this part, his eyes narrowing slightly with what was probably straight up rage instead of mild irritation, knowing how contained his sensei was. Is? Still is, apparently. “And then she…” Obito pauses, taking a slightly-too-ragged breath, and tries again. “She said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m a medic’, then stepped- stepped to the side and-”

_Damn_ it. Obito lifts his good hand up to rub at his eye, taking slow breaths. He figures he must be doing a good enough job staying on the right side of a mental breakdown, because the Yamanaka doesn’t come running at him or anything. “The man stabbed me in the heart.” Obito says in a flat rush, forcedly calm.

There’s a moment of silence and a faint tickle of killing intent. “What?” Minato asks slowly.

“Yeah. Lightning sword. I don’t- I woke up in the forest and she was the only one with me. Said she healed me.” Obito says quickly, hurrying onto less panic-inducing memories. “She demanded to know if I stayed with Madara intentionally.” Obito adds, shaking his head helplessly. “I said no. I’m pretty sure if I said yes, she would’ve killed me for real - but I _didn’t_ stay with him willingly, and she believed me. Then she gave me that scroll and told me to tell the Hokage that… it was a gift, ‘free of charge’. That they ‘understood the delicacy of the situation’, and to, and I’m quoting here, ‘Stay out of our way’. That they have a purpose, and won’t be stopped.” Obito trails off, lowering his hand and looking up at Minato apologetically.

“Then she pointed me to the path and left. I don’t know where she- Wait. She _did_ say they weren’t planning on returning to the Land of Fire.” He remembers suddenly, frowning at Minato.

Who frowns darkly back, his arms folded and gripping the opposite biceps. “Describe her to me.” Minato instructs after a long pause.

“Short pink hair, about chin length. Had a lot of blood-splattered on her. She wore a red dress, dark and it stopped at her belly button in the front, but went down to her knees in the back. White pants underneath.” Obito recites off quickly, his brow furrowing in concentration. “She wore high heels. The special, kunoichi-issue kind. Black, but no hitai-ate at all. Not even a plateless one. Green eyes, kind of emerald. I didn’t see much of the man. I only saw he had black hair.” He trails off there, having no more real information to offer.

Minato’s silent for a long, considering moment, and then he sighs softly. “Alright. Tell me more about these ‘White Zetsus'.”

 

* * *

 

“Killer B and Yugito Nii have gone missing.” Sarutobi informs Minato, two weeks after Obito’s return.

It says a lot about the month that all Minato can do is sit down and rub his hands over his face. “How?” He asks eventually, muffled by his palms, and Sarutobi sighs heavily.

“Yugito Nii was last seen in open combat with a pink-haired woman with an unusual red sword.” Sarutobi says grimly, confirming his fears. The damned woman, _again_. “And Killer B was last seen running away from Kumogakure with a blonde haired man in an orange jumpsuit and a red haori, and a black-haired man whose features were concealed by a cloak.”

“There’s _more_ of them?” Minato croaks, not yet willing to pull his hands off his face.

God, he really needs some sleep.

“It certainly appears so. Reports imply Killer B went along willingly. Yugito Nii, not as much.”  
  
He lowers his hands, meeting Sarutobi’s grim stare. “She was able to subdue her?”  
  
“Reports indicate that after a short battle, Yugito appeared to be ‘controlled’ and forced to leave with our mystery woman.” Sarutobi explains, then pauses to inhale around his pipe. “It’s safe to assume that there are three of them, and she is their leader.”

“She’s a child, but Nii is no pushover. I’ve read reports of the skirmishes she’s been in - she’s brutal, and she has complete control of her bijuu. Killer B even more so.” Minato shakes his head, resisting the urge to throw his arms up over his head. “What in the world do they _want_? It can’t be the bijuu. Killer B would never have gone willingly if that was their goal.”

“Assuming that he _was_ willing, and her companions did not employ the same assumed jutsu that the woman used on Yugito Nii.” Sarutobi acknowledges with a deep frown.

“What are the chances of that? It’s likely a kekkei genkai, from the way Obito described it. All she had to do was touch him.” Minato points out, lifting a hand to rub at his chin. “If they _are_ after the bijuu, they have three so far.” He says, then pauses. “The woman told Obito they weren’t planning on returning to the Land of Fire. A ploy to get our guard down so they can try to get Kushina?” He asks doubtfully.

That would be one sad ploy, if that were the case. They were never going to let their guard down around Kushina, and with this theory in hand now, they’d increase their guard until the mystery group was well and firmly dealt with.

“Kirigakure has been strangely silent on this matter.” Sarutobi informs him with a strange note to his voice.

Minato pauses in his thoughts to look up at him searchingly. Sarutobi’s eyes are narrowed on his hands, fiddling with his pipe. Wherever his thoughts are, they can’t be anywhere good. “They wouldn’t want to admit their bijuu got swept out from under their feet by a random missing-nin.” Minato points out and Sarutobi gives a small, noncommittal hum. “What are you thinking, Hokage-sama?”

“Hm. Nothing yet.” Sarutobi huffs, lifting his pipe back to his mouth. “How is Obito-kun?”

Minato grimaces deeply. “Not well, unsurprisingly.” He mutters, reaching up to run his hand through his hair. Ugh, he really needs a shower, too. A shower and a bed. “Haruna, the Yamanaka assigned to him has finally cleared him for visitation, but… it hasn’t gone well. Kakashi refuses to go, and Rin cried, and then _he_ cried, and then she tried to hug him-”

And then he threw Rin across the room and only Minato’s quick movements had stopped her from going through a window, and then Obito had a mental breakdown from sheer guilt and panic.

“It didn’t go well.” Minato concludes quietly.

“...Understandable, of course.” Sarutobi says just as solemnly, exhaling a plume of smoke into the room. “A year in the grasp of Madara Uchiha himself. If I was not - as she claims - _gifted_ his head, then I wouldn’t believe it possible.” Sarutobi heaves a heavy sigh that only makes Minato feel more exhausted, mentally and physically. “He has been through an incredible trial, and now he must go through another before he’ll be able to stand on his own two feet again.” Literally, unfortunately.

It hurts to even think about it. Minato can’t even _imagine_ waking up to find out Madara Uchiha himself had cut off a quarter of your body and replaced it with… well. Alien DNA of some sort, apparently. Something never seen before, with Hashirama cells scattered throughout to make it even more concerning. He can’t even imagine it, and the knowledge that his student spent a year _living it_ is utterly horrifying.

And then there was the matter of the chakra that had radiated through him when he first returned. Minato and Kushina had recognized it immediately, of course. It was the same chakra that had been in Rin, only even more potent. _Much_ more potent. Possibly because of how long he may have had it, as opposed to her only having it for several hours. Regardless, two things were very obvious.

Whatever the chakra was, it had been used to put an incredibly dark curse of some unknown distinction directly on Obito and Rin’s hearts.

And second, Obito’s memories attested to the fact that their ‘removal’ had come in the form of being stabbed in the heart and healed, which was upsetting enough in it’s own right.

“Will he?” Minato asks distantly, resting his arms on his knees, and Sarutobi offers a questioning hum.

“Hm?”

“Will Obito get his feet under him? Does he have a place to stand?” Minato questions, dreading the answer. He lifts his gaze to meet Sarutobi’s again, and … yeah. He knows the answer.

“Currently, no.” Sarutobi confirms damningly, calm and casual like he wasn’t destroying a boy’s entire life and all his dreams with those two words. Minato closes his eyes for a moment, dreading having to tell him. Obito would _really_ have a mental breakdown then, and, to be fair, that’s a pretty good argument for him _not_ being reinstated. “However, I see no reason to rush the decision.” Sarutobi sweeps on, and Minato blinks at him in confusion. “Our young Uchiha has given absolutely everything for his village. His life, his limbs, and now, quite possibly his mental stability.”

What a nice way to say he was probably certifiably insane.

“It would be beyond cruel to abandon him now. It would be heartless, and it would be no way to treat our heroes. Make no mistake, the boy is a hero.” Sarutobi says the last part softly, gazing past Minato and at, strangely enough, the Hokage portraits on the far wall. “No, we will hold our decision for now. Give the boy time to recover. Perhaps, in a few months time, we will reconsider our choice.” Sarutobi taps thoughtfully on his pipe and then turns back to Minato, offering him a warm, sympathetic smile. “Even if we do not, he won’t be abandoned - don’t doubt that.”

He won’t.

He won’t doubt that, because Sarutobi looks more sincere than he has in the past two years of this miserable war.

So Minato offers him a tired smile in response, and excuses himself to go eat some of Kushina’s dinner, probably cry on her a lot, and then get some well earned sleep.

 

* * *

 

Nagato’s meeting with them goes something like this:

He’s sitting alone, minding his own business, and contemplating the damage of Hanzo’s latest attack against the Akatsuki. There’s a loud, shattering, earth-rocking explosion outside of the Akatsuki’s den.

He steps out to investigate, and the next thing he knows, he’s waking up to see a pink-haired woman pocketing a jar holding his floating eyeballs, while a glowing blonde-haired man yells at her and the black-haired man beside her.

He vomits, as is the natural reaction to such a sight.

“-that, damn it! But you didn’t need to do all this! Oh my _god_ , Sakura, what the _fuck_!” The blonde is yelling when he comes back to himself enough to figure out that something’s weird as hell.

He just saw his eyeballs get pocketed.

He just _saw_ it.

These two facts did not add up.

Nagato pulls his headband off, using the reflection to stare at…

“What?” Nagato croaks, because while he doesn’t remember much of his childhood, he _does_ remember his black eyes, and these are definitely blue. Blue, blue eyes. They look ridiculous with his red hair.  
  
“I expected this kind of violent bullshit from Sasuke, but you, too? What in the _hell_ , woman?”  
  
“Don’t call me that.” The pink-haired woman huffs at the blonde, who falls eerily silent for a split second, and Nagato looks up to see he looks a little terrified before he rallies himself again.

“You knocked them out! You knocked them all out! With fists! And Sharingan! AND THEN YOU RIPPED OUT HIS EYEBALLS!” The blonde _shrieks_.

The black-haired man sighs heavily and lifts one hand up to silence the blonde. “Calm _down_ , Naruto. It was the simplest option, even if it was the more violent one. What did you want us to do, exactly? Come in here and demand his eyes?"  
  
“Then we’d _really_ have had to be violent.” The pink-haired woman adds, rolling her eyes, and then she looks straight at Nagato and waves.

What the fuck.

“ _YOU RIPPED OUT-_ ” Naruto starts to scream, and is promptly cut off by the woman roundhouse kicking him the face. Naruto flies away with a high-pitched ‘eeee’, like something out of a manga, and crashes into the side of the cave entrance. “Oh my _god_ that hurts. You bitch!”

“Watch it.” Sakura snaps back at him, lifting a fist to tug a glove on over it. Naruto falls immediately silent, and then finally seems to notice Nagato.

“Oh god. I’m so sorry, man, I should never have let them handle this. I should’ve known they’d do something like this,” Naruto says in an apologetic rush, turning to shoot Sasuke a vicious glare.

“Relax, he’s fine.” Sakura waves them both off, walking over to crouch in front of Nagato.

Nagato can’t quite move anymore.

At all.

What the hell?

“Don’t panic. We wouldn’t blame you for getting violent, but it wouldn’t be the ideal option right now, so we’re just going to keep you still until we’re done here.” Sakura explains to him, folding her arms across her crouched knees and frowning at him. Sasuke starts to circle through the cave, disappearing behind Nagato’s head, and fear belatedly starts to sink in, finally making it’s way through the shock and sheer what-the-fuckage of the situation. Naruto hops up and hurries over, crouching down next to Sakura and giving him an apologetic look.

“No, really, don’t worry. No one’s getting hurt, I promise. Well, some of them will have headaches.” Naruto shoots Sakura a vicious glare this time, and Sakura responds by smiling in a way that is utterly terrifying, to which _Naruto_ responds by quickly looking back at him and pretending to not be a little paler. “We kind of needed the Rinnegan.”

Oh, god.

Now he feels nauseous.

His _eyeballs_. In a _jar_.

“Yeah, I know, sorry about the shock value.” Sakura shrugs at him in a ‘what can you do’ kind of way.

You could start by _not stealing my eyeballs_ , is Nagato’s expert opinion.

“No offense. It’s just that we know how powerful these damned things are and, frankly, you haven’t tapped it yet. We didn’t want to be the ones to trigger it accidentally.” Sakura offers with a vague shrug. “Here’s the completely freaky thing though, they actually weren’t yours to begin with. Surprise.”

_What_.

“Yeah, she’s actually right. Long ass story. Short version is, crazy asshole gave you his Rinnegan eyeballs right before he died so his servant could manipulate you into resurrecting said crazy asshole after you activated the Rinnegan. Of course, to ‘activate’ it, you have to go through watching your best friend get slaughtered, so his servant probably would’ve set him up to die in front of you and then manipulated you into doing something completely batshit crazy.” Naruto ‘explains’ in a long, unhelpful rush. “Like, I don’t know, ‘hey let’s resurrect the motherfucking Juubi’ kind of batshit crazy.”

Again, _what_?

“Yeah like that’s possible, right?” Sakura says and there’s a tiny, nervous little titter to her tone, followed by an absolutely not suspicious glare and elbow-jab at Naruto’s side.

“Ow! Oh, right. Sorry. Juubi’s totally a myth.” Naruto informs Nagato matter-of-factly. “ _Ow_ , what? I did what you wanted!” Naruto snaps at Sakura, who had elbowed him again.

“Anyways.” Sakura says dryly, ignoring Naruto. “Those are your actual eyes, by the way. I killed the crazy asshole in this bizarre story, got your eyes back, took his eyes out of your head, and put yours back in. You’re welcome, by the way. It doesn’t seem obvious yet, but the Rinnegan was taking up about 60% of your entire chakra network.” Sakura explains grimly, lips twisting down. “If you’d activated it, it would’ve shot up to more like 95%. You would be at the edge of death your entire life if that had happened. Now, though…” Sakura pauses, glancing at Naruto and then offering Nagato a tiny, apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry for the circumstances. I know this is an unpleasant shock, of course, but it had to be done. On the bright side, without the Rinnegan to suck up your chakra, you’ll be much more powerful and have much more stamina than before. You’ll really live up to your Uzumaki lineage now.”  
  
To his what what?

Uzumaki? Lineage? Who the hell are the Uzumaki and how could she possibly know more about his lineage than _him_?

“Ah. That’s surprise on his face.” Naruto informs Sakura, eyeing Nagato’s face intently. “It’s the hair, man. The hair and the chakra reserves. You’ve got huge ones, almost as big as mine, and trust me when I say that is _seriously_ saying something.” He says, then glances at Sakura. “My natural ones, I mean.”  
  
“Ah. Good, I was concerned for a second. If you meant your, ah... enhanced chakra reserves, then our plan would be seriously flawed.”  
  
“Yeah, no kidding.” Naruto snorts softly, then looks back at Nagato. “I’m an Uzumaki, too. My mom - she had red hair, though not as dark as yours. It’s classic Uzumaki. Sakura’s got Uzumaki in her, too, hence the pink.” Naruto jabs a thumb at his companion, who offers Nagato another small grin, and then he frowns thoughtfully. “Actually, thinking about it, we’re really lucky I didn’t end up with pink hair, too.”

“ _That_ would be hysterical.” Sakura says with a shameless snort of amusement. “Unluckily, I’m a quarter Uzumaki, so the red-hair thing is kind of diluted now. No idea why you ended up _blonde_ though.”  
  
“Hell if I know. Ridiculously strong genes?” Naruto offers with a shrug.  
  
“Shame his IQ genes weren’t as strong as his hair color ones.” Sakura mutters.

Nagato…

Has no idea how to react to any of this.

He feels mildly like he’s been hit in the brain with a sledgehammer, really.

The black-haired companion, Sasuke, wanders back over and nods at his companions, who quickly stand up. “Sorry again, Nagato. But we’re not heartless assholes. We’re leaving you a couple of badass jutsus you should be able to use with your refreshed chakra reserves, and it’ll help you compensate for the loss of the Rinnegan.” Naruto offers with grim apology. “We agree with your cause, and you haven’t done anything to deserve, well,” Naruto shoots his companions another disapproving look, gesturing vaguely at the hideout cave as a whole. “Anyways, we seriously owe you one hell of a compensation for this crap.”  
  
“Don’t worry, though.” Sakura says, and there’s that unsettling smile again. She and Naruto step back and Sasuke crouches in front of him, his one visible black eye fixing on him with unsettling intensity. “We’ll start paying you back by giving Hanzo a little visit once we're done here.” Sakura informs him with dark promise.

Before he can react, Sasuke lifts a hand up to pull his hair away from his other eye. Nagato sees red, and then he’s unconscious again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some time has passed, everyone still has no idea what the heck is going on, and Sasuke and Sakura kill more dudes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sidenote: Yay! I figured out the spacing issue I had in the last chapter, if you guys noticed it. Also for some reason, AO3 adds spaces after all my italics, but only after I've gone over everything and then hit 'preview', so then I have to go back and redo them all for some bizarre reason. First world perfectionist problems, man.)

Hanzo was something many people would describe as a monster.

An atrocity to mankind.

An evil dictator with a record for mass murdering his own people.

He was enough of a something, in fact, that even _Naruto_ wasn’t against the plan.  
  
“Go forth and fuck shit up.” Naruto instructs, throwing his arms out in a wide, open gesture at the palace they were standing in front of.

“Sasuke?” Sakura asks, turning towards him with a gleeful glint in her eye.

“Sakura.” Sasuke states dryly, and it’s a testament to how long they’ve been together that both Naruto and Sakura are able to discern that as an enthusiastic agreement rather than just a monotonic noun.

“I’ll get the little people out of the way.” Naruto assures them, and then promptly floods the palace with approximately three hundred of himselves.

“Stay back, dear.” Sakura calls over her shoulder as she draws her sword, the red chakra blade gleaming even in the black of night. “Can’t have anyone noticing our trump card, after all.”

“Is that all I am, now?” Shikamaru asks dryly from where he crouches, very carefully concealed by the shadows. Sasuke snorts softly and Sakura turns to shoot Shikamaru a wicked grin.

“We can’t all be legendary for our combat prowess. We’ll be back!”

“Please don’t.” Shikamaru mutters before she and Sasuke dart into the palace in a pair of inhumanly fast streaks of blue and red chakra.

Yes, Hanzo was an evil man. If even Naruto himself couldn’t deny that, then he most certainly deserved the shock of having two shinobi cut through his forces like hot knives through butter.

Anything that stands in their way, never stands up ever again.

Hanzo barricades himself in his makeshift little throne room, where he makes the decisions on which of his people’s lives will be pointlessly thrown away next, and keeps his strongest with him. He’s the strongest of them all, though, of course.

Which is why Sasuke bypasses all the shinobi, leaving them for Sakura to quickly and effectively deal with. He goes straight for Hanzo, his black eye bleeding red, and stops right in front of the man.

All it takes is one look, and Hanzo never even notices the sword slicing through his neck. He’s too busy spending three days being tortured in Tsukiyomi, and by the time he gets out of it, he’s already on the ground in a pool of his own blood, with a perfect view of his shinobi force being completely decimated by a girl with pink hair.

 

* * *

 

Amegakure is a complete and utter clusterfuck, locked in the middle of three separate warring Great Countries.

Which is why it takes two months for the news to spread, at which point the jinchuuriki in Takigakure has already vanished as well.

The news comes in the form of Jiraiya, who has the good luck of stomping into the Hokage’s office while Minato, Kushina, Shikaku, and Sarutobi are all there. The grim look on his face promises only the worst kind of news, and the room goes immediately silent at his entrance. “I have bad news.” Jiraiya says by way of hello, wasting no time on pleasantries even though it’s been four years since he was last in Konoha, which means it’s _really_ the worst news. He strides forward and holds out a bingo book, fingers tucked in to open it on the page of a familiar pink-haired pain in the ass.

“She’s earned a name for herself.” Sarutobi says quietly as they all take in the paper.

“Uzumaki?” Kushina asks faintly, staring at the page.

Sakura Uzumaki, dubbed ‘Akashi’.

“The Red Death.” Jiraiya confirms darkly, allowing Shikaku to take the book and examine it more closely. “This is the updated edition. I’m the one who updated it - turn the page.” Jiraiya adds, and Shikaku arches an eyebrow before doing just that. Sarutobi’s eyebrows shoot up as he takes in her two comrades, while Kushina makes another soft sound of distress and Minato grimaces.

“Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke. No name for him?"  
  
“Not yet.” Jiraiya grimaces deeply. “But whoever he is, he’s damned good. I came here straight from Amegakure.” Jiraiya adds, drawing the full attention of the four back on him. He sits down heavily across from the sofa and chairs they’re all perched on, reaching out to set a picture on the table. “You’re going to be furious with me. I’m sorry, but hopefully you’ll understand why I never told anyone about this.” Jiraiya says directly to Sarutobi, who frowns softly before taking a closer look at the photograph.

There’s a long moment while they all take in the three children in the picture, and then Kushina slowly asks, “What’s with the eyes?”

“Nagato, who Sakura and Naruto claim is also an Uzumaki by the way, was a student of mine during the Second war.” Jiraiya explains grimly, shaking his head apologetically at Sarutobi, whose frown is growing deeper and deeper as his mind works. “I accepted the three of them as my students because of Nagato. The other two are Konan and Yahiko, but Nagato… Nagato had the Rinnegan.”

Silence fills the room at that, tense and unpleasant, and Sarutobi looks up from the photograph to lock Jiraiya with an unreadable stare.

Jiraiya winces a little. Yep - definitely furious.

“I thought that was a myth.” Minato says slowly.

“I did too. But he had it. The real deal.” Jiraiya sighs heavily, folding his arms across his chest. He ignores Sarutobi’s stare for the moment, focusing on the task ahead. “He sent me a letter six weeks ago. I rushed there immediately. He, and the organization Yahiko now runs to fight off Hanzo, were attacked and completely, effortlessly subdued by the so called Akashi and her comrade, Sasuke.” Jiraiya explains, shaking his head. “Nagato woke up after Sakura had already taken his eyes.”

Minato inhales sharply at that and Shikaku scowls, glaring down at the book in his hand. “She has the Rinnegan now?"  
  
“Yes. And according to them, it was never Nagato’s to begin with. _They_ claim that a man, who they referred to as ‘crazy asshole’, was the one to awaken the Rinnegan. That when he got too old to go on, he had his servant take the eyes and implant them into baby Nagato, as part of a long-term ploy to manipulate Nagato into using the eyes to resurrect said ‘crazy asshole’.” Jiraiya pauses for a second, because for some reason this news makes Minato shoot Sarutobi a sharp look, and the old man gives a tiny nod.

He doesn’t ask - not yet, at least. One thing at a time.

“They went on to claim that after they’d killed this so called ‘crazy bastard’, they took back Nagato’s old, preserved eyes and reimplanted them after taking his Rinnegan. Nagato says they also implied heavily that they themselves would be using them. And it, of course, gets worse.” Jiraiya says with a sigh that he feels in his _bones_. “I have reason to believe Sasuke is an Uchiha, or at least has the Sharingan.”

“Evidence?” Shikaku asks after a short pause.

“Nagato says that at the end of their little visit, Sasuke pulled his hair away from where it had been concealing his left eye, and Nagato saw that it was red before he was rendered spontaneously unconscious. He also thinks he heard them say it by name, but he was in shock at the time and can’t say for sure.” Jiraiya gestures vaguely with his hand, mostly just to have something to do as he speaks. “Based off that, I’d say it’s an implant, because his right eye apparently stayed normal. However, his appearance is typical of an Uchiha, so it’s possible he is one through-and-through. Black hair, black eyes, black personality, so on.”

That last bit gets a tiny twitch of lips from Kushina, at least.

“And after leaving the Akatsuki, the organization Nagato’s in and Yahiko runs, they apparently went to pay Hanzo a visit to ‘repay’ Nagato for his ‘sacrifice’.” Jiraiya says dryly. “Where they then proceeded to completely slaughter Hanzo and all of the shinobi in his palace. On the bright side, they left the civilians alone, and apparently Sakura even went so far as to heal some of them. Still, the slaughter earned her her new name.” He pauses to let that little tidbit sink in.

Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Tsunade had faced off against Hanzo once, back in the last War. They earned their names as the Legendary Sannin then, and that was just for holding their own against that madman. These three… Well. They really had _slaughtered_ him.

Jiraiya forces that unpleasant testament to their strength out of his mind for the moment, and clears his throat. “Nagato also said something else of interest.”

“Oh?” Sarutobi asks quietly and Jiraiya frowns softly.

“Evidently, Naruto is the one in charge of the trio, contrary to what we believed. Nagato says he was displeased with the amount of violence and… underhanded behavior when they struck the Akatsuki hideout. While he does appear to be the leader, however, Sakura seemed to be the one with the most authority overall. Apparently, she called most of the shots, but they both ultimately deferred to Naruto when he pressed.”

“Dissent?” Shikaku suggests and Jiraiya shakes his head.  
  
“More like alarmingly good teamwork, with Naruto serving as the team leader.”

“Ah.” Shikaku says, and none of them are very reassured.

“Great. So our potential enemies are incredibly strong, strong enough to take on someone even the Sannin had difficulty with, _and_ they have teamwork on their side.” Minato sighs heavily, rubbing at his forehead.

“Actually, it’d be more accurate to say they made the guy even the Sannin couldn’t beat look like a complete and utter joke.” Jiraiya says dryly, because as unpleasant as it is, it’s pretty damned accurate.

“Right. Thanks, sensei.” Minato mutters. “Do we know where they are now?”  
  
“No, but I have a suspicion.” Jiraiya tacks on with a sour face, and Sarutobi sighs as well.

“More bad news, I presume?”

“The worst. I found out why Kiri’s been so quiet about the Sanbi being snatched up.” Jiraiya says, shooting Minato a quick look at that. His poor student didn’t deserve to be dealing with the shitstorm on their horizon. Having one student ‘killed’ and held prisoner by Madara for a year, another kidnapped by Kiri and nearly turned into the Sanbi’s jinchuuriki with a seal rigged to blow? Hopefully Kakashi’s watching his back, because he’s probably next. Jiraiya lifts a hand to rub at his chin, grimacing darkly. “Their other jinchuuriki has disappeared. No one seems to know how long he’s been gone.”

The room falls silent at that.

Shikaku picks the bingo book back up, frowning down at it intently, while Kushina glares holes into the table and Minato, Sarutobi, and Jiraiya exchange dark looks over her head.

“If we track all these incidents, they first appeared in Kirigakure. From there, at least two of them travelled to Madara’s hideout at an unknown location, and then all the way to Konoha’s gates.” Shikaku says slowly, and they all wince a little at that. She’d gotten _alarmingly_ close to their home. “If the various reports are to be believed, then there’s even a possibility that her companion, Sasuke, was the one to murder Danzo Shimura.” Shikaku adds, which makes Sarutobi glare down at the table with a pained expression.

Kushina was the only one in the room who didn’t know the revelations that came out of Danzo’s death, and even thinking about them makes Jiraiya’s stomach churn. To think, he had been close friends with his sensei. “His sword and lightning affinity would match the cause of death.” Shikaku adds quietly, then clears his throat and sweeps on before they can get too stuck on the idea that one of them actually _did_ get into Konoha, all the way down into a hidden base, and brutally killed one of their strongest. “Then they went to Kumogakure and took Yugito Nii and Killer B for some unknown purpose. Then all three of them traveled to… Takigakure, or Amegakure first?” Shikaku asks Jiraiya, who shrugs a little.

“The Amegakure incident was seven weeks ago. Takigakure was…?”

“Six.” Sarutobi says darkly.

“So they went to Amegakure, then Takigakure. If they’re after jinchuuriki, their next stop is Iwa - but why the six weeks of silence?”  
  
“That’s assuming they haven’t already hit Iwa.” Minato points out. “If they have, we wouldn’t know - we’re still in peace talks after Kannabi.” No one can blame him for the small twinge of displeasure at the reminder of that particular mission. “Assuming they have… they’re either going to Suna, or coming here for Kushina.”

And wasn’t that a pleasant thought. Jiraiya leans back into the sofa, frowning up at the ceiling tiles. “Iwa’s got two - the Four and Five-Tails. Thankfully, _those_ two are both adults.” Jiraiya adds the last part with maybe a little too much bitterness. Yugito, after all, was only ten years old.

“Did you discover the identity of the Six-Tailed?” Sarutobi asks like he knows he’s going to hate the answer, and Jiraiya makes a face to confirm that, yeah. Yeah, he is.

“I didn’t get his name, no, but… the kids’ only seven.”

Dead silence.

“Yeah. The people aren’t very happy, either.” Jiraiya admits quietly, remembering the faces some of his informants had worn.

They might not like their jinchuuriki, but even the assholes were feeling the sting of losing a seven year old academy student to an unknown enemy.

 

* * *

 

Kakuzu’s death ends up being purely from bad, bad luck.

It’s three weeks after they hit Takigakure, ‘kidnapping’ their jinchuuriki (Some guy named Yurata. Fuu, being a year younger than Team Seven, had obviously not even been born yet), and Sakura and Shikamaru are travelling to Suna to do some spy work (where the hell is Shukaku and why is it so hard to find the damn bijuu) when they almost literally run into him.

They’re jumping through the trees in the Land of Rivers, and Sakura spots him walking casually down the path with all the confidence of a man who is practically immortal. “Oh my god!” Sakura gasps, dropping down in front of him. “You’re Kakuzu!” She accuses, shocked - because really, what the chances? - and the man pauses in his steps.

He moves slowly, killing intent filling the area, and clearly aims more for terrifying intimidation rather than actually assessing the threat and responding accordingly.

Great. He’s one of the idiots who dismiss her based off her youth and pink hair.

Regardless, it makes it stupidly easy for Shikamaru’s shadow to dart out at light speed and snag Kakuzu’s, freezing him in place.

“Serves you right.” Sakura huffs, irritated already. Seriously, how long does someone need to be a mass murdering villain for them to _not_ go ‘oh, pink hair? What a wimpy little girl she must be’? “Literally the only upside to becoming a villain would be recognition, a reputation for fear! And I still haven’t even gotten that much. Is it really too much to ask for?” Sakura mutters bitchily, stomping over to him and drawing her sword.

_That_ gets his attention, his eyes widening, but he doesn’t say anything. Of course he doesn’t, because Shikamaru’s the best damned Nara yet, and his jutsus cause _absolute_ paralysis.

He’s so good that when he’s really focusing, he actually has to regulate his captives breathing for them or they’d die once he grabbed their shadow.

“Your luck is utter crap, I just want you to know that.” Sakura informs the man, readying her sword. She’ll use it to deal with the hearts she can, then just chakra-punch the rest to pancake batter. “We actually genuinely forgot about you. Unfortunately for you, you picked the wrong path to take today, and the wrong person to run into. This is for killing my partner’s sensei, you utter piece of shit.”

She chops him up like a watermelon on a hot summer day.

Only instead of delicious fruit, there’s blood, and instead of icky black seeds, there are bones. Then she punches anything that resists the beautifully incinerating power of her fire-chakra sword until they’re nothing but a mushy puddle.

Then Shikamaru saunters over and lights it all on fire.

“Yay teamwork.” Sakura celebrates with a blood-soaked fist that Shikamaru lazily bumps.

Too bad Hidan’s probably only, like, two or something. That _really_ would’ve made Shikamaru’s day.

 

* * *

 

 

Kushina’s taking it personally. It worries Minato, but then again, nowadays there’re very few things that don’t.

Rin worries him, with her occasionally shaky hands and bags under her eyes, her denials that anything’s wrong and her strained, but honest smiles.

Kakashi worries him, with his refusal to spend more than a few minutes at a time in the same room as Obito. With his denials that anything’s wrong, as well. With his guilty, shamed glances towards Obito when he thinks no one’s looking.

Obito worries him, with his lack of even attempting to smile. He worries Minato the most, to be truthful. He’s still jumpy, even after two and a half months. He’s still holding back instinctive punches when anyone touches him, and god help you if you surprise him with contact. But Obito can walk now, and that’s helping, Minato thinks. He still doesn’t smile, but Minato isn’t quite so worried about checking in and finding Obito dead on the floor. He’s quiet and he’s not even close to okay, but he’s better. A little bit.

Kushina, on the other hand, is utterly furious.  
  
“Let them come for me, I’ll kick their damned asses.” She snarls almost incoherently. “They’re _my people_ , _my family_ , and they want to take me? I’ll let them have me. Yeah, they can have my _foot up their ass_!”

Minato tries to calm her down, but it doesn’t work well. He can’t lie to her. He can’t say that they don’t know why they’re taking jinchuurikis, that maybe it’s not so bad - there’s only bad reasons to be collecting them. _Only_ bad reasons.

It doesn’t help when Suna’s hit next.

Their mystery trio, understandably, also worries Minato quite a bit.

 

* * *

 

It takes them two weeks of skulking about Suna to find the damn tea kettle.

They spend another week trying to figure out how to safely grab it and get out of Suna in tact.

“This is taking too long.” Sakura says darkly, worrying her lip, and Shikamaru looks sideways at her with eyes already narrowing in thought.  
  
“Sasuke?” He questions and she nods, looking out the window of the inn they were staying in.

“He’s got us on a time limit, and I haven’t been able to take a look at him in nearly four weeks now. We can’t keep putting this off.”  
  
“No. But do we have much of a choice? You on your own may be able to handle this, but with me-” Shikamaru pauses when she turns to look at him, takes in the manic gleam in her eyes, rolls _his_ eyes upwards, and takes a deep, deep breath. “Sakura. No.” He says flatly.  
  
“Sakura _yes_.” She corrects breathlessly, grinning.  
  
“No.”  
  
“ _S_ _hika_.” Sakura huffs out, stepping over to stand in front of where he’s perched at the foot of the bed. “You know it’s smart.”  
  
“It’s _reckless_ is what it is, Sakura. Facing a group of ANBU on your own was one thing - this is an entire shinobi village.”  
  
“Embrace the villainy. That was your idea, remember?”  
  
“Yes, because we’re on a deadline and the political route would have taken too long for-” Shikamaru cuts off again, and once more rolls his eyes upwards, praying to whatever deity may or may not exist.

“You just made my argument for me.”  
  
“This is different. This is riskier. You’re not talking about pissing off the Elemental Nations from a distance anymore - you’re talking about doing it from the dead center of one of their military strongholds. Suna might not be the biggest or the strongest, but they’re nothing to scoff at, Sakura!”  
  
“And I’m not scoffing!” Sakura says sharply, narrowing her eyes and finally putting on her big girl boots. “Listen, Shikamaru,” She says severely, crouching down to be a little less looming. “We need to be risky now. I need to get back to Sasuke, and we can’t do that without the you-know-what, and I can’t fight at my full strength having to keep one eye on you.”

He twitches at that, but can’t really argue. It’s not that he’s weak - it’s just that Sakura’s on another par with the damned Kage.

“So get out of here." She says, then pauses and grimaces a little. "You aren’t completely wrong, though. I’m not sure I could get out of here on my own without actually fighting seriously, and people die that way, which would kind of go directly against one of our promises.” Sakura allows with a small wince, Gaara’s last words to them echoing in her head.

_Save my people_ , he’d pled.

“Send Naruto my way.” Sakura suggests, frowning at the foot of the bed. “He’s good at the distracting thing. He’s fast, too, so it won’t take him long to get here and he probably won’t get beat around too much. I’ll grab the you-know-what while he’s distracting, and then we’ll meet you in Tanzaku.”

Shikamaru grimaces, glaring at the ceiling for several tense moments longer. Finally, he reluctantly pushes himself to his feet. “I thought we were avoiding the Land of Fire.”  
  
“We’ll probably need to ditch them quick. Suna’ll follow us into the Land of Rivers or the Land of Rain, but they won’t follow us into another Great Country. Not during a war like this. We _just_ hit Iwa, too, so they’ll be even more on guard than Konoha will be.”

Theoretically, anyways.

“I don’t like this.” Shikamaru says tightly. “You’ll be beyond just outnumbered, Sakura, and we both know that ends.”  
  
Sakura’s expression shutters darkly for a moment before she forces it away and nods, pressing her lips together grimly. “We’ll ditch the secrecy about our abilities, then, if we get too beat up.” She swears.

Shikamaru nods sharply. “Find me in Tanzaku. I refuse to be the one to tell Sasuke why our plan ends in complete failure.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go on, scram. Tell Naruto to haul ass.” Sakura warns.

He nods and walks lazily out of the room instead of _shunshin_ ’ing straight to the gates.

Sometimes pretending to be a civilian is really damn _slow_.

 

* * *

 

For Rasa, the Yondaime Kazekage, his meeting with the infamous group is a... _unique_ … experience.

It begins when there’s a sudden burst of incredibly strong, but bizarrely _calm_ chakra almost directly over the Kazekage tower.

Rasa instantly abandons his desk, rushing from his seat and leaping right out through his office window. Gold dust flies up to catch his heels, halting his fall and then immediately lifting him straight up. Rasa glares at the glowing body hovering above his village, floating up at it as fast as he can.

“PEOPLE OF SUNAGAKURE!” The glowing body _bellows_ , far louder than any man has any right to be. “I COME BEARING GRIM TIDINGS! INDEED, YOU MAY EVEN CALL THEM WARN- Ack!”

Rasa hits the man in the face with his gold dust, and the stupid glowing pest doesn’t even try to dodge. The glowing man (what the hell did the bingo book name him as? Naruto. Naruto was the blonde one, and though it was hard to tell with the entire man emitting yellow light like the sun itself, Rasa was fairly confident his hair was blonde) scoots backwards in the air at the force of the gold dust hitting him, but he doesn’t drop, and Rasa clenches his outstretched hand into a fist.

The man’s eyes widen as the gold sand attempts to crush his throat, and then a bright spark of lightning has Rasa’s sand tumbling off him uselessly.

Rasa blinks, then narrows his eyes, watching the man hack loudly.  
  
“Oh my _god_ , who goes straight for the throat, dude? Dick move, man.” Naruto gasps out a little bit hoarsely, one hand weakly raised to point accusingly at him.

...Things were not adding up in Rasa’s head, and it made him all the warier of the mysterious man. His gold dust was not so easily impaired. Being a combination of wind and earth jutsu, his kekkei genkai was fairly durable against lightning jutsus, but the man had made it look completely effortless. “Why are you in my village?” Rasa barks out demandingly, raising both hands to guide more of his gold dust to him.  
  
Naruto lifts his head a bit more, taking slower breaths, and shoots him a completely incredulous look. “Aren’t you listening? I’m here to warn you!”

“Warn me.” Rasa repeats flatly, but either the man doesn’t notice the utter contempt in his tone or he flat out doesn’t _care_ , because he nods seriously.

“Warn you.” Naruto confirms, then takes a deep breath and says with the utmost severity, “Never send uncles to kill little children.”

What the fuck?

“No, seriously! Bad idea, like, _all around_ , dude.” Naruto explains quickly, wrinkling his nose. “I mean, _really_ bad idea. Not sure why anyone would ever think it was a good idea in the first place, but trust me when I say, you really just should not even _consider_ \- Hey!” Naruto shrieks, suddenly plummeting ten feet in the air to avoid the gold dust clapping into the space his skull had just been occupying.

Rasa grimaces deeply, wariness only rising, and sends his gold chasing after the man.

He’s _fast_. Faster than Rasa, by _far_ , and his gold dust lags behind the glowing man embarrassingly far.

And then the south side of the Kazekage tower explodes.

Rasa snaps his head down to look in alarm, taking in the dirt and dust billowing out, and grits his teeth, reaching out to direct some of his gold dust towards the building.

“LOOK OUT!” Naruto yells, and then punches him in the face hard enough that Rasa is sent flying off the edge of his gold cloud. The cloud catches him a split second later and Rasa slashes his free hand out at the golden asshole, his other hand still directing dust after him. Air shrieks out from his hand, visibly slicing the space Naruto rather suddenly isn’t occupying anymore. “Don’t trust anyone named with five letters and ending in -anzo!” Naruto yells frantically, darting through the air to avoid the dust.

Rasa grits his teeth, ignoring his rising frustration and angering worry for his subordinates in the tower.

“I think we pretty much took care of it, but if you ever meet anyone named Pain, just fucking run, man.”

It’s damned obvious now that the man is just a distraction, and it’s easy to gather what he’s distracting Rasa from. There’s only one thing in the tower these infamous criminals could be after.

A soft tickle at the back of his mind confirms his theory, and Rasa frowns grimly as he lifts his free hand, making a quick sign to trigger the trap.

The thin layer of gold dust he’d planted on the tea kettle slides up and squeezes, and he _feels_ the bones of mystery hands crush under the force of his dust.

He swings the hand out, using it to control even more dust, and attempts to trap Naruto between the two streams of crushing gold. Whoever the would-be-thief was, they were now without their hands and his ANBU would be able to deal with them.

“Orochimaru is a snake! Like, I think he’s actually literally about eighty-percent snake-thing now. Super bad idea to trust him.” Naruto ducks under a swing of dust that _almost_ brushes against his hair.

Damn it.

“Also he has a really bad habit of basically eating people’s insides and then wearing their bodies, so, yeah.” Naruto says quickly and a little bit breathlessly. “God damn your gold sand is fast as fuck, isn’t it?”

Apparently not fast enough, Rasa thinks irritably as he misses him _again_. Damn it.

Clearly he can’t deal with this annoying, rambling man on his own, which is infuriating, because the guy is obviously too stupid have any right being so skilled. But Rasa didn’t live to be Kazekage by not understanding his own limitations, so he immediately starts to subtly herd the man towards the southern side of the mesa that surrounds Sunagakure.

“I really think we should just talk about this, Kazekage-sama!” Naruto yelps as he ducks under another wave of golden sand, then jerks to the side to avoid the other. “Maybe we could even-” Naruto pauses, and for a moment Rasa’s concerned he may have noticed how close they already were to the mesa, but he looks down instead.

Rasa doesn’t allow himself to look down, in case it’s a trick.

“Uh. Shit.” Naruto says uncertainly, his brow furrowing with concern, and then he turns and flies for the mesa at breakneck speeds.

For a second, Rasa’s so surprised he can only blink. Then he notices the pink-haired body quickly leaping from building to building, approaching the mesa, with a red-haired form in her grasp. Rasa’s eyes narrow dangerously, his heart rate spiking, and he pushes his gold dust cloud towards the mesa as fast as it can go.

If the pink-haired girl is there and her hands are intact enough to carry another person, then their third teammate must have been the one to touch the kettle - which means she likely has it herself now. And his ANBU are following at an embarrassingly long distance.

Who _are_ these people? Or _what_?

Rasa beats the pink haired woman there, dropping down a few feet from Naruto with his dust hovering at the ready, and she hops up to Naruto’s side only seconds later.

Rasa nearly swallows his tongue.

She has Sasori.

She has Sasori, and the second she touches the ground, she crouches and forces him to his knees, wraps her arm around his forehead to wrench his head back, and presses a kunai to his neck. Sasori’s wide, terrified eyes stare pleadingly at Rasa, who forces his breathing to stay even.

Her hands are soaked in drying blood up to her elbows, and while there’s no trace of any breaks or damaged skin, he had felt his sand crawl up approximately that much skin. What the hell _were_ they?

“Sorry, Naruto. I ran into someone rather _interesting_ , wouldn’t you say?” Sakura asks, and her voice is tight with fury, her eyes lit up with malicious intent.

Rasa grimly wonders how he’s going to break this news to Chiyo.

“Sakura-” Naruto starts, his eyes wide, and then he falls grimly silent as Rasa’s ANBU finally arrive, surrounding the four of them immediately. Rasa flicks his hand up warningly and none of them approach, though they hold their weapons - or their hands already making seals - at the ready.

“What do you want.” Rasa asks flatly, meeting Sakura’s heated stare and trying to ignore Sasori’s terrified one.

“Nothing from you, Kazekage-sama.” Sakura says lightly, and the tone only makes her seem more crazed. Sakura jerks Sasori’s head back pointedly, pressing the kunai down hard. “Tell him.” Sakura commands in a terrifyingly flat tone.

For a moment, Rasa’s confused. Tell who what?

But then Sasori swallows thickly, the kunai drawing a thin line of blood at the movement, and Rasa realizes who she was addressing. Rasa examines the fifteen year old intently, only finally recognizing the faint hints of guilt the boy was showing.

“...Tell me what, Sasori?” Rasa asks slowly, and gets a vicious grin from Sakura for that.  
  
“Yes. Tell him _what_ , Sasori?” She asks, and taps the kunai pointedly against Sasori’s neck.

“I- I don’t-” Sasori chokes out, no doubt having a hard time speaking with his neck pulled so taut, but Sakura has no sympathy for him. She gives a furious growl and shallowly cuts Sasori’s neck in one smooth motion. It isn’t deep, but it still bleeds relatively hard, and Sasori gives a harsh gasp and jerks a little in her arm.  
  
“TELL HIM!” Sakura shouts and Sasori jerks a hand up urgently.  
  
“Alright!” Sasori gasps.

Naruto, Rasa belatedly realizes, is looking firmly away from the proceedings, his head turned and his eyes narrowed at the ground.

“Tell me _what_ , Sasori?” Rasa demands coldly, and Sasori takes a wet, jerky breath at that.

“I- It’s- I had-” Sasori struggles to start and Sakura rolls her eyes, her scoff cutting him off.

“Oh, please. Drop the act, Sasori. You’re going to die today, so get it out of your system while you still can.” Sakura huffs and pauses for a moment, Sasori freezing in her grasp. “Go on.” Sakura says, slyly suddenly, like she’s cajoling him. “I know you. I can see how hard you’re fighting it. I’d be willing to bet you’re actually biting your tongue right now, aren’t you?” She asks lightly, fingertips digging into his temples.

Rasa watches warily, ready to hit her with his dust if she makes a move. It probably wouldn’t save Sasori’s life, but he had to try.

“ _Tell him_ ,” Sakura purrs, green gaze darting up from Sasori’s face to sear into Rasa’s instead. “I know how badly you want to brag. Do it. You’re going to die here anyways, what do you have to lose?”

There’s a moment more of hesitation, and then the fear bleeds out of Sasori. His eyes go cold and… _smug_.

“The Sandaime’s dead. I killed him.” Sasori says and Sakura eases her grip on his forehead, allowing him to look Rasa dead in the eye and smirk.

Rasa stares at him uncomprehendingly.

“How did you do it, Sasori-chan? Share with the class.” Sakura prompts lightly.

“Poison.” Sasori snorts softly. “I poisoned his tea for two months and he never noticed.” Sasori’s smirk widens, and Rasa…

...He has no idea how to even respond to that.

They’d been searching for the Third Kazekage for two years now. _Two years_ , and one of their own, a thirteen year old boy then, had murdered him?

“Good boy.” Sakura praises, but then her smile dies and her voice goes ice cold. “Now tell them what you did to his body.” She commands, and Sasori doesn’t even hesitate to.

He _does_ laugh, though. “I made him my greatest weapon.” Sasori chuckles. “I took our _great Sandaime’s_ corpse, and I made it into a puppet for me to kill his own people with.”  
  
“And how many of those people have you killed, by now?” Sakura asks flatly. _This_ time, Sasori hesitates. Maybe her tone of voice has finally gotten through to him and he’s remembered what a dangerous position he’s in. Maybe it’s the fact that Rasa suddenly can’t find a single fuck to give the little bastard, and Sasori’s realized he really isn’t getting saved.

If she lets him go, he’ll kill him himself.

“...Thirteen.” Sasori says after a moment.

“Good boy.” Sakura repeats, but she doesn’t even make an attempt to force lightness into her tone. She stares at Rasa for a moment longer, then looks down at Sasori, pulling his head back again to force him to look back at her. He swallows thickly against the kunai. “One of those was a very good friend of ours.” Sakura says matter of factly. “We loved him like a brother, and you killed him. I’m afraid I’ve never quite forgiven you for that.” Sakura informs him, and then slits his throat so deep that Rasa sees the white of his spine. She drops him instantly, jerking to her feet, and grabs hold of Naruto’s arm.

Before Rasa can even understand what he’s seeing, one of the black balls floating behind Naruto’s back drops down to their feet and flattens out into a small platform.

They step onto it and it instantly shoots across the sand. “On me!” Rasa snarls, gathering a gold cloud under his feet, and his ANBU are instantly at his side, rising through to air atop it.

 

It doesn’t matter.

They’re faster, and even when they follow them through tracking instead of line of sight, they’re forced to stop when they cross into the Land of Fire.

And indeed, when Rasa returns home and plans how he’s going to explain things to Chiyo, the tea kettle holding Shukaku’s subdued spirit is gone, and a spray of blood coats the wall behind where it once sat.

 

* * *

 

Jiraiya drops into Konoha again, a month after his last visit. “Two of them invaded Sunagakure a week ago.” He informs them darkly.

Sarutobi sighs heavily and Minato immediately grimaces, but Shikaku, their only tag-along this time, frowns silently down at the Hokage’s desk.

“The damage?” Minato asks wearily and Jiraiya cocks his hip, settling a hand on it.  
  
“Only one death. But we’ll get to that in a second. Apparently, our blonde guy - whose name I still resent, by the way, if you all were curious - has some sort of unknown kekkei genkai. Or at least _I_ don’t know it. Haven’t heard of a damn thing like it, really.” Jiraiya huffs grumpily. “He glows bright gold, flies, and is fast as hell. I couldn’t get any more information than that about his skills, but apparently he was faster than the Kazekage’s sand - by a lot. He was acting as a distraction while our favorite pink-haired menace blew a hole into the side of the Kazekage’s Tower. I think we can all gather what she was after.” Jiraiya says dryly.

And, yeah. They could.  
  
“Were they successful?” Sarutobi asks and Jiraiya shrugs helplessly.

“I genuinely can’t say.” He says, and the grumpy tone is back. “Suna’s keeping it all on the downlow. They’re still testing newborns for chakra compatibility, I know that much, but that doesn’t really mean anything.” Jiraiya pauses for a moment and then exhales hard through his nose. “But I’d say at this point, it’s more than safe to bet they were successful.”

“Which means Kushina’s the last.” Minato says hollowly, lifting his hands up and scrubbing at his face.

His poor, exhausted face. He hasn’t slept well in over three months, not since they got Rin back - and then Obito in the same week.

“...Who was the one death you mentioned?” Shikaku asks after a brief, grim moment to reflect on Minato’s point, and Jiraiya’s silent for long enough that Minato lifts his head from his hands.

Jiraiya’s glaring down at the Hokage’s desk, his eyes narrowed, and Minato frowns softly in concern.

“From what my sources could gather, when Sakura broke into the tower, she easily and effortlessly dispatched a team of ANBU sent in after her. When she was leaving, Sasori of the Red Sands tried to confront her, and apparently she… lost it. I don’t know the details, but she dragged him up to where Naruto and Rasa were fighting. Whatever happened, happened, and Sasori was found with his neck slit down to the bone and Rasa gave a public speech condemning him for the murder of the Third Kazekage and thirteen other Suna citizens. Evidently, he was experimenting turning living humans into puppets, and the Third Kazekage was his greatest success.” Jiraiya says in a flat, almost hollow voice.

“...Wow.” Minato breathes out, stunned and horrified all at once. “He was-” He blinks as a thought hits him. “He was thirteen when the Third died.” Minato realizes suddenly, appalled, and Jiraiya nods grimly.

_Shit_. What kind of a child… and if the Third was his success, then he had to have been practicing on the other thirteen. And for how long? Since he was twelve? Eleven? _Ten?_

“This is grim news indeed, and it begs the question - what was the connection between the three criminals and Sasori?” Sarutobi questions with a deep frown.

“Dragging him away to publically slit the throat, that’s personal.” Shikaku points out by way of agreement. “Suna’s part in this war have taken them into Ame, Tani, and Ishi. It’s possible our mystery shinobi comes from there.” He says, but even as he does, he looks doubtful.

“They’re too strong for that, I’d say.” Minato says with a small frown. “Too strong for anywhere, really. This is getting ridiculous. Rasa’s sand is fast enough to keep even me on my toes. We know she and the other one, Sasuke, are both highly skilled in kenjutsu and that she, at least, is a skilled medic-nin.”  
  
“ _Damn_ skilled, too.” Jiraiya says with a sour face. “Only other medic-nin I know who can fix someone who’s gotten stabbed and electrocuted directly through the heart is, well, Tsunade.” The admission seems to pain him, and he winces a little at the reminder of his old teammate, long since gone from Konoha now. 

“Great.” Minato sighs at that. “Sasuke may or may not have the Sharingan, and apparently, Naruto can fly.”  
  
“Hate that kid,” Jiraiya mutters uncharitably.

“And they’re probably coming after Kushina next.” Shikaku concludes grimly. There’s a moment of silence, and then they all automatically look at Sarutobi for guidance.

Sarutobi puffs at his pipe for a long moment more, eyes narrowed in dangerous thought. He exhales a deep breath of smoke and sets the pipe down. “Shikaku.” Sarutobi begins commandingly, standing and rising to his full height. Minato immediately climbs to his feet as well, Jiraiya a split second behind him, and Shikaku straightens his back and meets Sarutobi’s gaze. “Pull back as many forces from the Iwa front as you need. I want eighty shinobi. Ten teams of eight, formed of exclusively jounin and chuunin - as many jounin as we can spare, Shikaku, and only the most highly praised chuunin. We need brutality and force. An Inuzuka, and a Hyuuga or Uchiha on each team.” Sarutobi rattles off sharply.

“Track them down, Shikaku. If they take one step into our Land, I want them taken in. Use caution in excess. If there are more than two of them in our territory, the team is to wait for another team to join them before attacking - and they _will_ attack. Strike with extreme prejudice. Equip them with T &I’s best chakra suppressors. If they cannot contain them, if they cannot capture them effectively, then they are to kill them.”

“Yes, Hokage-sama. I will place one Nara on each team as well.” Shikaku agrees immediately, bowing to the elderly man. “Our shadow jutsus will be incredibly helpful in capturing and restraining them.”

“Lead a team yourself, Shikaku. I want you to be out there - I trust in your skill and they will need your guidance. Minato, lead another.” Sarutobi says, making him jump a bit.

He wasn’t expecting that. He was due to return to the Kiri front in two weeks, in fact. Minato frowns a little at that, but bows without hesitation. “Yes, Hokage-sama.”  
  
“Go. Choose your teams, Shikaku, and if you need any from the fronts, then Minato will go and fetch them. They move too quickly for us to waste any time.”

“I’ll lead another team, Hokage-sama.” Jiraiya volunteers with a deep set frown. “Or if nothing else, I’ll join one. It _has_ been some time since I last worked with a group.”

Shikaku waits until Sarutobi nods to agree. “You’re definitely welcome. I’ll find a place for you.”

Minato chews his lip worriedly, watching Jiraiya incline his head at the Jounin Commander. “I want Hizashi.” Minato chimes in before Shikaku’s brain can get too far ahead. “Hizashi and Kakashi.”  
  
“I’ll try,” is all he offers, but Minato isn’t going to press.

If Shikaku decides to place Hizashi elsewhere, then it’ll be for the better.

“I’ll also try to put both a Hyuuga and Uchiha on each team. Brace yourself for the tension.” Shikaku adds with a soft snort.

And wasn’t that an understatement?

* * *

 

Meanwhile, quite a distance away, nine shinobi sit in a brightly lit cave, trying to ignore the eerie sounds filling it.

“Does this hurt?” Sakura asks blandly, breaking the awkward silence, and jabs Sasuke’s ribs.

“Yes.” He informs her flatly.  
  
“And this?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And here?” Sakura asks, switching to his other side.

“ _Yes_ , Sakura.” Sasuke snaps and Sakura pulls back, frowning at him.

“Well you’ve gotten testier, that’s for sure.” She mutters, brushing her fingers off on her pant leg. “It’s worse, of course, but we still have time. Two months, give or take.” Sakura says, glancing over her shoulder at the source of the light and dull roaring. “We’re almost ready, so we’ll make the schedule just fine.”  
  
“Hmph. Only if Naruto manages to figure this out.” Sasuke points out, shooting a glare in the same direction.

“Oh, please, like you figured out everything in the first week of having a dojutsu. I _remember_ you after waking up your Sharingan, Sasuke. You didn’t know shit.” Sakura informs him curtly.

“He knew how to get carried through the Forest of Death.” Shikamaru points out boredly, studying the light in the distance.

Sakura smirks and arches an eyebrow at Sasuke, who glares at the back of Shikamaru’s head.

“Thank you, Shikamaru.” He says in a particularly not grateful tone.

“What’s the forest of death?”

Guilt churns Sakura’s stomach, but she turns her head with a warm smile any ways. “It’s a training ground in Konoha, Utakata. A huge one, with all sorts of freaky giant animals. I saw a centipede in there once that was fifty feet long.” Sakura tells informs him, and the seven year old’s eyes widen at that.

_Too young,_ her brain mourns. _Far too young._

“ _Fifty feet_?” He repeats, stunned, and she nods.

“We had our Chuunin Exams there, in fact. Naruto got eaten by a snake that was at _least_ a hundred feet long.”

“Whoa.” Utakata shoots an impressed look over his shoulder and Sakura lifts her gaze to meet Sasuke’s amused one.

Kids are cute.

Utakata falls silent for a moment and when Sakura looks back over to see why, he’s watching Yugito talk to Killer B several feet away. The boy looks pensive, and it’s easy enough to guess why.  
  
He and Yugito didn’t get along.

While Yugito had been pushed and pushed and pushed, so much so that Sakura had half a mind to go back and punch the hell out of the Third Raikage, Utakata had been treated more like Naruto. While Yugito had been forced to go through a horrible ‘training’ regimen, Utakata had been abandoned. While Yugito had become loved by her people as a Chuunin at the age of eight, Utakata was still loathed and only an academy student. And where Yugito was a mature kunoichi who had grown up quickly in the violent horrors of the Third War, Utakata was still very much a naive child.

No doubt the talk of the Chuunin exams was only reminding him of just how different he and the ten year old were.

“It’s finishing up.” Roshi interrupts them all, jutting his chin towards the light, and Sakura turns to confirm.

He’s right. The thick beams of light siphoning from the tea kettle and into the Juubi’s statue are starting to die down, and the howling is easing. It gets less and less bright until finally, the jutsu cuts off all together, and Naruto comes out of his meditation panting for breath.

There’s a moment where they all stare at the Juubi in pensive silence, and then a second one of it’s eyes slide fully open and stare eerily into the cave.

“Only took three days this time! At that rate, we’re really looking fine!” B cheers loudly and exuberantly enough that Naruto can’t help but grin and lift his hand in a thumbs up, even though he stays doubled over and panting.

Sasuke silently heads over to him and Sakura goes to do the same, wanting to make sure the jutsu hadn’t overexerted him, but Utakata snags her hand.

She glances down, catches one look at his uneasy expression, and drops down to crouch beside him. “What is it?” She asks him quietly, too lowly for the others to hear as they make their way over to Naruto. Only Han lingers behind, watching Utakata with concerned eyes.

(At least, Sakura thinks he looks concerned. It’s hard when literally the only unarmored part of him are his eyes themselves.)

“Sakura-san?” He asks uncertainly, looking past her to watch the Juubi statue warily, and Sakura frowns softly. “Is it going to eat me, too?” Utakata asks quietly.

_Shit, kid,_ Sakura thinks, her stomach churning viciously with guilty nausea. It takes her a second to respond, swallowing thickly. “It might, Utakata.” She confesses softly, hating herself for the way it makes Utakata look at the Juubi with even more worry, but she can’t lie to him.

It’s bad enough they’re asking a seven year old to do this. They can’t _lie_ to him about it on top of that.

“But that’s what this is for, remember?” Sakura reminds him gently, pointing at the crowd surrounding Naruto. “That’s what all of this is far.” Sakura reaches out and taps him on the cheek, forcing his attention back to her, and he looks up at her and gulps. She flashes him her warmest, more reassuring smile, and pretends it doesn’t feel like glass in her heart. “I _promise_ , Utakata. Even if the Juubi gets you, we’ll just beat it up and get you back.”

Maybe it’s the smile. Maybe it’s the silly lightness of her tone.

Whatever it is, it makes Utakata relax and smile back at her. Then he turns and rushes over towards the others, only shooting the Juubi one quick glance on his way past.

She tries not to feel like she’s just lied to him. She hasn’t, not really, but… he’s too young to fully understand the implications.

Han, however, stares at her for a very, very long minute before he offers her a slight incline of his head.

“You are a good woman, Sakura. No matter the outcome, you - and your teammates - have my utmost respect.” He says quietly.

She looks at him for a long moment, startled, and then flashes a smile that only makes her feel her exhaustion even stronger. “Believe me, Han. You all have ours, as well.” She pushes herself to her feet and claps her hand to his bicep, almost immediately withdrawing her hand because _ow fuck that’s hot as shit, dude, what the hell,_ and then super nonchalantly lowers her hand back to her side.

The asshole still looks amused, not matter how casually she pulled that move off. “Steam, Sakura.” He reminds her in that soft, naturally dangerous tone of his, and she rolls her eyes and looks away with a sniff.

“It was intentional.” She lies.

Terribly.

She totally forgot his armor held a ton of steam under it, damn it. She ignores Han’s raised eyebrow and walks over to Naruto, clapping her hands together once and smirking. He looks up at her and instantly winces. “Alright! Let’s get those eyes switched back around.”

“Uhg.” Naruto groans, reaching up to rub the eyes in question. “Fine. Damn, these things are draining as hell.” He adds miserably.

Sakura pats him on the shoulder sympathetically, and then knocks him unconscious.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Holy water cannot help you now.  
> See, I've come to burn your kingdom down,  
> And no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out.  
> I'm gonna raise the stakes,  
> I'm gonna smoke you out." - Seven Devils, Florence and the Machine

Surprisingly enough, the members of what was once Team Seven (plus Shikamaru) were not, in fact, very comfortable with the idea of sacrificing a living person for the sake of reviving some dead dude for all of twenty four hours.

Unsurprisingly, none of them had such qualms about having Naruto hunt down one of the scattered White Zetsu’s left and sacrificing one of _them_ for it.

“Ah, the dulcet tones of literal monsters getting their due.” Sakura sighs blissfully at the agonized screaming.

“Oh god I’m going to puke.” Naruto groans and then dips out to do exactly that.

“Poor guy.” Sakura watches him go sympathetically.

“It must be exhausting, being burdened with such tedious things like morals.” Shikamaru agrees blandly.

So blandly that it takes her a second.

She sits up and frowns at him, ignoring the way Zetsu’s still wailing in the background. “Are you accusing me of having no morals? Because I have morals.”

“Name one.” Shikamaru counters instantly.

“I’m super not okay with…” Sakura starts, pauses, and curses mentally.

 _Quick, Inner, give me something,_ Sakura presses, but she silenced Inner like ten years ago, and the violent little bastard isn’t getting free anytime soon.

Damn it.

“...hitting babies.”

“Oh, of course. The babies. Woe are they.” Shikamaru drawls, not even bothering to open his eyes.

“Sc _rew_ you.” Sakura shoots back disdainfully, rising to her feet just as the screams finally taper off.

Zetsu… kind of explodes. _Kind of._

Into dust and stuff, or something, which then reforms into a more familiar shape. “Excellent, it worked. Good job, Sasuke, you evil bastard you.” Sakura praises, ignoring the resurrected guy for a moment.

“Uh. What?” Said guy starts to say before Sasuke makes a quick hand gesture and he shuts firmly up.

“Thank you.” Sasuke belatedly responds to Sakura, inclining his head, and he actually does look a little bit pleased.

...Maybe her ‘evil’ claim wasn’t as much of a _tease_ as she thought.  
  
“Right. I’m going to get the target. Stay safe, no one die. That means _you_ , Sasuke!” She adds sharply over her shoulder before breaking into a sprint.

It’s ridiculously easy to find the damn woman.

It’s _stupidly_ easy to piss her off into chasing her.

Literally all Sakura does is grab her briefcase and run.

“HEY! YOU LITTLE PINK HAIRED MOTHERFUCKER!” Tsunade screeches and Sakura high tails it the fuck out of there. “GET BACK HERE AND I MIGHT SPARE YOUR LIFE!”

Hah, yeah, no.

Fuck that, she likes her ribs not being dust.

Sakura goes as fast as she can, and when she gets back to the small clearing in the trees, she drops the briefcase into Dan’s paralyzed lap and grabs Shikamaru by the front of his shirt, hauling him up onto her shoulder before he can even wake back up. “Time to go, good luck, Dan, you have twenty four hours, bye!” Sakura blurts out in a rush and makes her escape, Sasuke and a returned Naruto smartly following right at her heels.

They don’t stick around to hear Tsunade’s reaction, because they’re short enough on time as it is - and also because Sasuke picks that moment, two minutes into their run, to start coughing blood.

Sakura has to drop Shikamaru and pick Sasuke up instead, because if he thought coughing blood was bad, he never needed to figure out how it felt to cough blood _after_ a punch from Tsunade had shattered your everything.

 

 

* * *

 

Minato gets Hizashi as requested. Hiashi, whose Byakugan range is even better than Hizashi’s, had been given his own team - but Hizashi’s range isn’t far behind, and that’s why Minato asked for him.

He gets Kakashi, too, which Minato is relieved by. Not only was the ten year old (and didn’t that hurt to think about? He was only _ten_ and had seen so much war) very skilled and a huge benefit in combat, but he also really, really needed to get out of Konoha.

The kid was killing himself out of guilt, and being away from Obito definitely helped. It was obvious the first day of their journey.

He also gets Saiga, the current head of the Inuzuka family - which meant that they are officially the power team.

If any other team found the group, they’d be the ones called in to back them up.

So of course, it figures that they’d be the ones to run into them, and more than one of them at that.

“I see them.” Hizashi announces two weeks into their journey, and Minato immediately feels cold all over _. This is it_ , he thinks grimly, mentally preparing himself. “Something’s... “ Hizashi pauses, shooting him a furtive look over his shoulder, and Minato frowns at him questioningly.

“What is it?”  
  
“One of them is a jinchuuriki.” Hizashi announces flatly.

Minato’s brain stalls at that and everyone freezes, exchanging quick, severe glances. “One?” Minato repeats after a brief second for recovery. ‘Them’, he’d said. Plural. That wasn’t good news. “How many of them are there?”

Hizashi glances at him again, grimly this time. “There’re four. Two kilometers away.”

 _Fuck_. “Everyone drop. Shikana.” Minato looks sharply at the Nara in question, who glances over at him before quickly ducking under a tree branch. “Send out the signal.”

They pause on the next tree branch, Hizashi keeping his gaze pointed ahead, and Shikana falls into a crouch. She only takes a moment to pull out the transmitter, broadcasting a series of clicks to the other teams. “We can’t wait, Minato.” Hizashi announces grimly. “They’re picking up speed.”

“A sensor of their own?” Genba Uchiha asks grimly, setting a hand on the katana at his hip. “This isn’t looking good.”

“It’s not.” Minato agrees warily.

“Three well known to be incredibly strong and an unknown, yet to be seen fourth?” Kakashi shakes his head, grimacing under his mask. “This is a trap.”

“I’m not so sure.” Saiga grunts, reaching out to set a hand on his dog’s head. “I smell blood. Even from here, and that means there’s a good amount of it. We should hit them now - if they’re wounded, we might not get another opportunity like this.”

“I won’t be able to sense them for much further.”

Minato curses under his breath. “Alright. Shikana?”

“I’m done.” She says, even as she taps a few more clicks - but she rises a moment later, stuffing the transmitter back into the bag on her back.

“We’re moving, now. Attack formation. Kakashi, Hizashi, Genba, you’re up front with me.” Minato barks, and flies off the branch. The others are right at his side, almost perfectly in time, and that much, at least, is a relief. “It’s safe to assume they have a sensor. That means no hesitation. We don’t stop until we’re attacking them. Genba, Kakashi, go for the one with the black hair. Shikana, pin down the girl. Saiga, stick with me. We’ll strike the fourth and assess his skill set - he’s a completely unknown to us now. The rest of you, focus down the blonde. He’s apparently the leader, so be prepared.”

“They’ve stopped.” Hizashi warns sharply and Minato shakes his head with a grimace.

Definitely a sensor, then. “Stick with the plan.” He barks, and they break into a small clearing a minute later.

It’s instantly obvious that their planning is for nothing.

The three of them are standing in a half circle, the blonde glowing a radiant gold and holding a long, thin black staff at the ready on one side. The woman’s in the middle and front, her katana lifted and her eyes narrowed dangerously, and the Sharingan wielder is at the other end, his own sword at the ready.

They leap out all as one, three breaking to each side to flank while Minato and Hizashi come at them from head on. Three-pronged kunai rain down at them, but the golden glow around Naruto lashes out like a tail to swipe them away from the ground.

“Now!” Sakura shouts sharply, and the second their feet touch the ground, they freeze.

Involuntarily, of course. There’s a brief sensation of something darting up his body, and then there’s a hand very lightly around his neck - but there’s nothing there. Minato can only blink hard and shift his eyes around to glance at his fellows, unable to turn his neck to see them better.

Shadowy hands have gripped them all by their throats, and not one of them can move.

“Shit.” Sasuke puffs out, doubling forward a little bit, and his katana drops until the tip is against the grass. Sakura twists towards him, one hand settling on his sternum supportively and the other rubbing his back. He coughs in response, hard and wet, and there’s the blood Saiga smelled.

It comes out of him with every hacking cough and splattering to the ground, and when it’s finally over, Sasuke grabs the hem of his cloak and lifts it with a shaky hand to swipe at his mouth. “We’re out of time here.” Sakura says severely, turning her head towards Naruto, but her eyes lock on Minato and refuse to leave him.

It’s smart.

She clearly understands that if anyone’s going to break free, it’s going to be him. All he needs is to move just a little and he can _hiraishin_ free to any of the kunai on the ground around them.

Naruto shoots her an agonized look. “What do we do, Sakura? I won’t ask you to leave-”

“You aren’t.” Sakura cuts him off, shaking her head, and Minato watches the interaction darkly. Her eyes narrow dangerously, expression twisted with angry grief and just a hint of panic, and he can _see_ how frantically her mind is working. “We need a second to brainstorm.” Sakura informs Naruto, who immediately steps backwards.

Minato sees Shikana and Saiga’s eyes widen, but doesn’t understand why until Sakura steps back and crouches next to the man they’d previously been bodily shielding from sight. It isn’t just any man, and suddenly many things make much more sense all at once.

It’s a Nara crouching there, making the Clan hand sign as his shadow stretches out eight different ways to catch each and every one of theirs. _Impossible_ , is Minato’s first thought, followed immediately by, _Just who are these people_?

Even Shikaku, who Minato has known his entire life and who was undeniably the fastest of his Clan, can’t catch Minato’s shadow when he’s fighting seriously. Even _Shikaku_ can’t.

And this kid isn’t Shikaku, but he looks alarmingly close. He’s almost identical, but his eyes are a little narrower, and he has no scars or goatee - but he’s _too similar_ , and alarm bells were going off in Minato’s head.

What the hell did it all mean?

The inexplicable paralysis during their past assaults (and, arguably, rescues) had been his doing, no doubt. But how had no one heard of his presence before now?

Sakura and the Nara are whispering rapidly to one another, occasionally one of them shaking their heads, and Minato can’t make out anything so he redirects his attention to the other two. The possible Uchiha.

Jiraiya’s description of the man wasn’t wrong, is the strange thing. His left eye is carefully covered by his hair, but his right eye is the typical Uchiha black. His face, his coloring, it all screams Uchiha just as much as the Nara’s screams… well, Nara. In fact, he reminds Minato strongly of Mikoto, Fugaku’s wife and Kushina’s friend. Naruto, on the other hand…

Naruto looks somewhat like him, actually, from what little of him Minato can actually see through the bright glow surrounding him. His hair and his eyes, really, are almost the same as Minato’s own. Spiky yellow and bright blue, respectively. The shape of his face, though, is much rounder - and the weird little lines on each cheek are definitely different from his own face.

On their own, the similarities aren’t terribly remarkable, but for all three of them to look like Konoha’s elite shinobi is suspicious at _best_.

But Sakura speaks up before he can consider that much further. “Naruto. If we leave him behind, can you carry us the rest of the way?” She asks tightly, lips pressed hard together, and Naruto looks stricken.

It takes him a moment to answer. “I- It’ll still be too draining, probably.” Naruto grimaces, shaking his head. “With Sasuke all fucked up-”

“Shut up, dobe.” Sasuke mutters halfheartedly.

“-we’re really going to be pretty much relying on my strength. I know I make it look easy, but this crap is pretty draining.” Naruto admits, shaking his staff pointedly for some reason.

Sakura presses her lips even harder together, glancing sideways at the Nara, who looks back at her grimly.

“...There’s no choice then.” Sakura says tightly, and then stands up and pulls Naruto into a tight hug. She must whisper something to him, because when she pulls back a moment later, Naruto’s looking at her warily.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Sakura confirms with a nod. “It’ll be fun. Don’t worry.”

“Oh, totally.” Naruto snorts softly, a tiny, sad smile tugging at his lips.

“Go on, get out of here. We’ll be fine.” She shoos him.

“Sakura,” Sasuke starts, and whatever’s on his face makes her smile at him sadly. He twists his katana around and slides it smoothly into a sheathe under his cloak, then reaches out to tap Sakura on the center of her forehead. Her entire expression softens, so much so that Minato, being held _captive,_  still manages to feel like he’s intruding on something. “Don’t take too long.”

“I won’t.”

Naruto pulls her into another quick hug, Sasuke stepping away and glaring slowly at each and every one of the shinobi. “I love you.” Naruto says urgently, then steps up to Sasuke’s side.

“I know. I love you both, too. Get out of here.” Sakura commands, and Naruto hesitates for a moment, staring directly at Minato.

There’s a weird expression on his face that Minato can’t identify. Wistfulness, perhaps, but not quite - and that doesn’t make sense, anyways.

But before he can try to work it out, Naruto drops his staff.

His staff, which smoothly spreads out into a flat, black disc that the two of them step onto.

And then _fly away on it,_ far faster than even Minato can run. Hizashi makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, and the shadows tighten ever so slightly.

Sakura exhales a heavy breath and throws her sword out at Minato, and it lands quietly in the grass at his feet.

Ah.

He understands. They’re surrendering. They won’t fight, but they won’t let them go, either, which means they’re buying time for their comrades escape. Sakura crouches down next to the Nara but keeps her eyes locked on Minato, narrowed and hard. “I’ve got you.” Sakura says quietly, lifting a hand to make a seal. “ _Kai_.”

Chakra _floods_ the valley, so much of it so suddenly that it makes Minato feel like he’s been punched in the chest. The skin around Sakura’s forehead flashes purple for a second, and then thick black lines dart out and wrap around her body. She presses her hand to the Nara’s shoulders and the black lines wrap over him, as well.

Suddenly, he can barely even move his _eyes_ anymore.

“Sorry.” Sakura offer lamely, her gaze still locked on him. “Believe it or not, I actually quite like Konoha. It’s just that some things are more important than a half dozen shinobi.” She grimaces softly. “And we’re running very short on time.”

Silence - eerie, uncomfortable, forced silence - fills the valley for several minutes before she break it again. “We aren’t bad people, believe it or not. I understand your perception of us, and I want to reassure you - none of the jinchuuriki have been harmed. All of them came willingly, except for Yugito I suppose, but she’s remained with us of her own choice, as well.”

Minato wants to argue. Wants to yell that Killer B, for all his flaws, would never leave his brother’s side in the middle of a dangerous war. He wants to yell that the Kiri jinchuuriki was only _seven_ , far too young to know what he’s doing.

But he can’t. He can’t even control how fast he’s breathing.

“We were never going to come for her.” Sakura says, and Minato feels the blood drain from his face. Kushina’s status was a secret even in Konoha’s own walls - a _very well kept one_. The fact that she even knew it was completely _insane_. “This is all unnecessary, really.”

“Don’t complain, you aren’t even doing the work.” The Nara says tightly, a bead of sweat running down his face, and Sakura rolls her eyes.

“Shut up, sweetie, I’m monologuing.”

“Since when do we monologue?”

“Since we became the villains.” Sakura huffs in exasperation, her gaze never leaving Minato. “One day you’ll figure it out, but you’ll never grasp the scope of what we’re doing.” Sakura informs Minato, matter of factly. “Assuming the tales do you justice, you’re too damned smart not to put it together eventually. So let me make this clear now, and try to remember it when the time comes.” Sakura pauses for a moment, eyes narrowed and lips pressed together severely. “We chose this path, and we knew what would happen when we did. We forgive you, and everyone else involved.”

 _They_ forgive _him_? The more she talks, the more worried he gets. She’s clearly… deranged, he supposes. Delusional, at _best_. He wishes he could speak, but he can’t so he silently watches her and she silently watches him.

It doesn’t last too much longer. Sakura’s head snaps up after five minutes, staring high above and past Minato’s head, and she makes a soft sound of displeasure. “It’s time.” She warns, lifting her hand to make the sign again. “We surrender.” Sakura informs them, the black lines draining away back towards her forehead. She kneels down then, folding her hands behind her back, and bows her head low.

The shadows hold for a brief moment longer before the Nara breaks the jutsu and does the same. Shikana wastes no time in grabbing their shadows, imitating their positions with a tight frown. Hizashi looks towards Minato with barely controlled fury. “One of the two was the jinchuuriki.” He murmurs to the man, about half a second before Jiraiya crashes into the valley atop Gamabunta.

“Minato! What the hell happened?” Jiraiya demands, hopping down and landing in front of him - the rest of his team following suit. “You went radio silent.”

Minato makes a soft sound of acknowledgement, barely controlling his own anger - and a bit of embarrassment, too - as he gestures vaguely towards Sakura and the mystery Nara. “Tag them!” Minato barks sharply. Kakashi and Genba step forward to do just that, putting an extra chakra dampener on Sakura for good measure. The woman wrinkles her nose but doesn’t protest, even when Hizashi strides over to begin studiously and not-so-gently closing her tenketsu. “They got the better of us. He’s a Nara, and a strong one.” Minato murmurs to Jiraiya, who sends him an incredulous look at that.

“I know. I’d say it was a rookie mistake, except that we had no idea he was even with them until we arrived.” Minato half-hisses, the white-haired man lifting his hands a bit in surrender.

“Calm down. I know you aren’t incompetent, kid.” Jiraiya huffs softly, and movement from the corner of his eyes has Minato glancing over to see Sakura staring at them intently. Jiraiya follows his gaze and twitches slightly. “...Freaky stare, isn’t it?”

“A little bit.” Minato grunts in acknowledgement. “The Nara held us all for the last twenty minutes. She’s completely insane - no less than four in the interrogation room with her.” Minato warns and Jiraiya’s eyebrows shoot up before he nods.

“I’ll take your word for it. She looks…” Jiraiya pauses, tilting his head and squinting a bit. Minato’s halfway to bracing himself for some lewd comment, and so he really doesn’t expect the way the blood suddenly drains from Jiraiya’s face and the man rushes forward.

Minato turns in surprise to see him already in front of Sakura, crouching down and grabbing her hard by her chin, jerking her face up close. “What is it?” Minato demands in alarm, stepping over to his side, and that’s when he sees it.

Her hair had fallen in front of her face when she’d knelt, but Jiraiya’s manhandling had brushed it away, exposing the all-too-distinctive purple diamond on her forehead.

The woman bares her teeth in a mockery of a smile, and were he any less confident in his skills and the chakra seals, it’s probably freak even him out a little. “Where the hell did you get that mark, Akashi?” Jiraiya demands, shaking her head a little bit. Minato takes a quick step back to give him more space, and Hizashi, in the middle of sealing the Nara’s tenketsu, does the same. He drags the Nara with him, Shikana’s shadows stretching to accommodate the adjustment, and stops several feet away.

Minato notices that he purposefully angles the Nara so he has a nice view of Jiraiya’s mini-interrogation.

“Where do you think, Jiraiya-sama?” Sakura, the woman with no self preservation, asks lightly. The Nara seems to agree with Minato’s assessment, because he jerks slightly again Hizashi’s hold.

“Sakura! Don’t-” He breaks off with a hiss, turning his head away from the sight of Jiraiya punching Sakura in the side of her face.

“Where did you learn that seal?” Jiraiya half-roars.

Maybe it was the punch, but more likely it was the Nara’s shout, because Sakura looks at the Nara with narrowed eyes and goes completely silent. Jiraiya lifts her by her shoulders and gives her a good shake, but she doesn’t make a sound, not even a grunt, so he drops her and whips around to face Minato.

“I’ll get a Yamanaka on her.” Minato says preemptively and Jiraiya closes his mouth for a split second, nodding.

“Do it. I was Inoichi on it. This is bad, Minato, you have no idea - and get another seal on her!” Jiraiya barks the last part to the group as a whole, and one of his people jerks forward to do just that. _This_ time it gets a reaction, with the third seal leaving her doubled over and struggling to catch her breath.

It’s probably dangerous to leave her chakra so low, but frankly, Minato’s not feeling too sympathetic of her plight.

“Can you take them back, Minato?” Jiraiya asks urgently, stepping over to him, and he shakes his head.

“No - but Hizashi can.” Minato looks to the Hyuuga for confirmation.

“Yes, taicho. I can manage both groups.” Hizashi bows his head slightly.

“Tell Sarutobi. I’ll be back once I find her.”

“I will. Good luck, sensei.” Minato says quietly to Jiraiya. The man pauses only long enough to clap Minato once on the shoulder, then leaps back up onto the toad and vanishes in a puff of smoke.

Minato exhales a hard breath and steps forward, grabbing the back collar of Sakura’s dress and dragging her over to the Nara, who watches with narrowed, furious eyes and a tightly clenched jaw. “I’ll take them back. Stay safe, Hizashi.”

“We will, taicho.” Hizashi promises, stepping away from the Nara once Minato’s got a grip on the man’s shinobi-issue shirt.

Then he finds the furthest seal, flares his chakra, and is there moments later. Sakura gives a sharp, hitching breath, and Minato allows himself to feel a tiny bit of juvenile smugness before he _hiraishin’s_ them again.

This time he pauses just long enough for her to finish vomiting before he gives one last _hiraishin_ , directly into T&I.

There’s a moment of startled clatters and hastily drawn weapons before the interrogators recognize him and relax. “Damn, Minato, why do you always do that?”

“Because it’s secure.” Minato answers Inoichi blandly, dragging the pink-haired woman in front of him and pointedly raising an eyebrow. “This one’s for you to handle personally. Show me to a room and we’ll discuss it - and no less than four interrogators in with each of them at a time, got it?”

“That bad, huh?” Inoichi sighs heavily but nods. “Ayame, Tetsu, and Jiro, with me. Haruna, you can handle the…” Inoichi pauses, finally noticing the Nara’s face, and Minato can _see_ the gears working behind his eyes. It takes him a moment to figure out how to respond, which he does by pointing at the man. “Handle this one.” Inoichi says in an utterly flat voice.

Haruna, who is… apparently the same Yamanaka who was handling Obito, Minato recognizes belatedly, steps forward to grab the man from him.

“Let’s go.” Inoichi tells Minato, jerking his chin towards one of the many hallways connected to the large office space, and Minato drags Sakura along behind them.

 

 

* * *

 

Sasuke glares at the Juubi statue as he and Naruto return to the cave.

There’s a moment of complete silence when the jinchuuriki catch sight of them.

“...Where are Sakura and Shikamaru?” Roshi is the one to ask and Sasuke clenches his hands into fists.

If only he hadn’t had an attack. If only he’d been able to _breathe_ properly. They would’ve been _fine_ , but they left to hunt down the last of the White Zetsus, and he’d-

One of them hit him in the damn chest.

“Konoha’s got them, but it’s fine - it doesn’t affect our plans.” Naruto says firmly and confidently, like their best and second closest friends weren’t currently being held by T&I.

Like he didn’t know damn well they’d never see Shikamaru again, all because Sasuke’s lungs were _assholes_.

“Sakura has the Rinnegan with her, safe. They’ll never know where to find it.” Naruto adds reassuringly, looking past them all and at the statue, two of it’s eyes wide open and eternally staring, and Sasuke resists the urge to punch the wall.

He’d only break his hand, and no one was around to heal it anymore.

 _Fuck_.

“Are you sure?” Yugito asks cautiously, too wary and too smart for someone only ten years old, and that’s probably why Sasuke feels the need to avoid her like the plague.

Too much like him at that age, except her pent up fury is directed at anyone Killer B tells her in an enemy instead of at Itachi.

Who hadn’t even even been an enemy to begin with, god damn it.

“We’re sure.” Sasuke bites out and refuses to look at anyone’s reaction to his too-sharp tone.

She’s only ten, Sasuke reminds himself.

Sakura would’ve punched him for snapping like that.

 _Damn it_.

“We’re sure.” Naruto echoes his words with more confidence and generally less asshollery, and Sasuke breathes slowly through his nose. “I’ve got a chakra sensor on me. Once she feels the Juubi, I’ll hit myself with this thing and she’ll be able to come right to us.”

“Good. When will we begin?” Han asks curtly.

Naruto takes a deep breath, looking at the Juubi statue grimly. “Now. B - you’ve got the best relationship with your bijuu. Best chances of resisting if it gets greedy. You willing to go first?”

“Hah! If that’s a question that needs asking, get ready to start basking. No hesitation.” B reassures with a confident grin, and then adds slyly, “cause I’m not from the _Fire_ nation.”

As usual, it takes Naruto a moment to identify the insult there.

“Hey!” He protests loudly, but it’s too late, and B’s already ignoring him in favor of reaching out and poking the Juubi.

 

* * *

 

 

Inoichi spends about fifteen minutes in her head before he has to step out, meeting Sarutobi and Minato in the observation booth with a slightly dazed expression. “She is completely and entirely insane.” Inoichi informs them, sitting down and rubbing his forehead. “Completely. And she’s weaponized it. I just got mentally pummeled by a personality fragment that took on the form of a very violent eleven year old girl.”

“...Seriously?” Minato asks incredulously, looking between Inoichi and the girl in the interrogation room.

The girl who is casually picking at her nails, not even seeming to notice the four shinobi in the room with her. “ _Seriously_. There are three of them, if you were wondering. _That_ one, the eleven year old girl, and a seventeen year old girl, too.” Inoichi pauses for a moment. “Strangely enough, it’s actually the teenage one that’s the nice one.”

“Did you learn anything?” Sarutobi asks the important question while Minato still tries to wrap his mind around the three-personality thing.

“Some. Not much. She’s a medic-nin, and a damn good one, going by what little I could get my hands on. From what I can see, Tsunade taught her willingly.”

That…

...That doesn’t sound right at all, and Minato glances quickly at Sarutobi to see that he’s definitely on the same page.

“Are you certain they were true memories?”

“Yes. Which makes things stranger. I was only able to get flickers. Tiny, brief fragments. Long enough to tell they’re real, but too short to get much information. She’s been through hell, from what little I saw.” Inoichi informs them with a dark frown, glancing out and through the one-way glass window. “I’ve seen her punched through the chest, have limbs chopped off - one flicker she even got bisected and had to drag herself back to her lower half.” Inoichi shudders at that and Minato suppresses the urge to do so himself. “I saw her with her hand wrapped around the heart of her teammate, manually keeping it pumping for him. There were… _thousands_ of bodies around them.”

Minato frowns in confusion at that. “Thousands?” He repeats dubiously, glancing at Sarutobi. “She can’t be older than twenty five. There’s no way she lived through the Second war.”

“No.” Inoichi confirms, shaking his head, but he doesn’t offer anything else for a long moment. “If I had to hazard a guess, from what little I saw, it was in the Land of Lightning.”

That made even _less_ sense. “Kumo hasn’t had any deaths on a large scale like that.”

“No, they haven’t.” Inoichi offers a small shrug, clearly at a loss and just as concerned as them about it. “All I know is, the memory was real. Wherever she came from, she’s been through hell. For her mind to have fractured that young, something pretty damn bad must’ve happened. Most kids don’t break like that at tragedy. Even when it’s bad, kids are more resilient than we are. That, or… she had some underlying mental disorder. I didn’t have much time to look around, between avoiding a sociopathic eleven year old and a crying seventeen year old.”

“Crying.” Minato echoes, looking back at the woman.

She’s moved on from examining her nails and has decided to climb up onto the table, where she’s now laying with her back to them.

Inoichi pauses to frown at her as well, blinking. “...She must have one hell of a chakra supply to still be able to move around like that.”

“No kidding. Uzumaki blood at work, I suppose.”

“Were you able to discern anything about her lineage?” Sarutobi asks. “Or that of her comrades?”

“Honestly, no. She doesn’t seem to have very many memories of her parents - they were shinobi, I gather. Her comrades… the blonde you described, with the whiskers, he’s the one whose heart she was beating for him. The black haired Sharingan user, I’m not sure about. Her other teammate was a similar looking Uchiha, though, and he’s the one who put his hand through her chest.”

 _Yikes_. Minato shudders a little at that. “They seemed pretty cozy when we ran into them.” And were promptly, with shameful ease, captured and held by the enemy. “The blonde was alive and well, too.”

“Hmph. Well, I’m going in for round two if you want to check in on the Nara-wannabe. Do me a favor and stop by to send the secretary out for some migraine medication, her brain is an asshole.”

 _Fits right in with the rest of her, then_ , Minato couldn’t help but think unpleasantly as Inoichi headed back into the interrogation room. “Go look in on him, Minato. Perhaps they’re having better luck with his mind.”

They were, in fact, _not_ having better luck.

“It’s a steel trap.” Haruna groans three hours later, alternating between chugging coffee and gagging on it. “I tried everything. His brain doesn’t budge, not a single bit. Three hours of attacking it relentlessly and the man didn’t even _twitch_. All I got was a constant, never ending swarm of rapid fire thoughts being pummeled into my skull too quickly for me to understand any of it, and if I went any further into that damn maze he built in his brain, I’d never get back out.”

Inoichi’s luck doesn’t get any better, either.

“It took me an hour to even figure it out, is the most irritating part.” Inoichi confides in Minato as he waits for his migraine medication to kick in, an ice pack around the back of his head. “She sends me random little tidbits of information while her psychopathic child side chases me around murderously - but the second I try to approach the sad alter ego, or the second I get too close to _something_ of substance, I get completely shut down. _Completely_ , Minato. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Inoichi shakes his head, looking more troubled than distressed. “She’s good, Minato. She’s a _genius_ , which makes it even worse.”

“The Nara apparently is as well.” Minato sighs tiredly, exhausted.

“Her chakra control is off the charts, Minato.” Inoichi says grimly, making him look up in concern. “ _Off the charts_ , and I really mean that. I think we overestimated her chakra reserves. I think if she had any less control, having three seals on her would’ve killed her. I _genuinely_ believe that she is redirecting her chakra around the seals, and that she’s doing it consciously, constantly, and _while fending me off_.”

That’s…

Insane. “I’m starting to think that me being called a genius is offensive to our villainous quartet.” Minato confides, which makes Inoichi snort loudly.

“I know, right? Goddamn.” He shakes his head in dismay. “Once this medication kicks in, I’ll go back for round two. I want to try taking one of the seals off and going after the crying personality fragment.”

Minato frowns immediately at that. “Why remove a tag?” He asks cautiously and Inoichi offers a faint shrug.

“I’m hoping if she doesn’t have to focus so hard on maintaining her chakra control, she’ll slip up and I’ll get close enough to get a few solid memories. I’ve seen fragments like the crying one before - usually they form in wartimes like now.” Inoichi explains, waving a hand vaguely, and Minato tilts his head slightly at the man. “You know how they have an entire Academy course on absolutely _not_ suppressing grief and anger, but instead redirecting those emotions into ‘healthier’ methods of expression?”

By which he meant they taught them to use those emotions to kill more efficiently, empowering without overwhelming. “I remember.” Minato confirms and Inoichi huffs, jabbing a thumb at the window Sakura’s still on the other side of, now _really_ asleep. He thinks.

“ _That’s_ why you don’t suppress them. You end up fucking something up somewhere. The only reason she hasn’t had a complete mental breakdown externally is because her mind is having the breakdown internally instead. It fractured, so now those pent up emotions are so intense they’ve basically formed their own personality. I guarantee if I can get close to it, I’ll have some solid answers for us.”

Minato hesitates for a long minute more before he reluctantly nods.

“Do it.” He agrees and Inoichi nods, but makes no attempt to move just yet.

“I will, just as soon as the me-”

And then they feel it.

It’s faint, but the rush of malevolent chakra is still harsh enough to make his hair stand on edge. Minato turns towards it automatically, bracing himself to _hiraishin_ towards the mystery chakra, and promptly freezes.

Because Sakura’s moving too, jerking suddenly to her feet and ripping the chains off her wrists like they were made of paper instead of metal. The seals _burn_ off her skin, and Sakura slams her heel to the floor before the shinobi can do more than reach for their weapons. The floor _explodes_.

Time is of the essence, so Minato leaps straight into and shatters the observation window, throwing himself into the dust-filled room. There’s another crash, almost instantly following the first, and the wall between her room and the Nara’s is abruptly nonexistent. “You took your time.” The Nara says dryly as Minato chases her into the room, catching sight of her just before she uses a single finger to break the chains holding the Nara’s wrists. Both of them jerk around sharply to look at him.

He throws a kunai at the woman’s head and _hiraishin’s_ to it before the Nara can do anything. He reappears right over the ducking woman, and twists to slam a _rasengan_ dead center into her spine.

Sakura gives a small gasp, followed by a sharp, _“Kai!_ ” And the room fills with stifling chakra.

Minato twists, grabbing the nearest seal, and teleports to the wall where his kunai had ultimately landed. He instantly pushes back off the wall, launching himself in a twisting move over the Nara’s head, and stabs down with another kunai. It buries into the woman’s shoulder blade even as she twists around, expression more irritated than pained, and her hand wraps around his wrist.

He reaches for the seal against her shoulder.

And then her fist slams into his chest and he’s in a world of pain so extreme it takes his breath - and for a moment, his vision - away.

He tugs on the seal anyways, and reappears just behind her head, already stabbing down with another kunai-

And he freezes, the tip of his kunai a bare centimeter from the back of her skull.

The mystery Nara, to add absolute insult to injury, has to be the fastest Nara ever, because that was almost instantaneous.

“Holy _fuck_ ,” Sakura breathes out, turning around and looking at him with wide eyes and a pale complexion. “Holy _shit_ , did you fucking see that? Because I _didn’t_ see that, oh my god.” Sakura gives a hysterical, breathless laugh, looking helplessly at the Nara, who stares at Minato with dangerously narrowed eyes.

“You’re lucky I’m as fast as I am, Sakura.” He grits out, a bead of sweat already forming at his temple as he struggles to hold Minato in place.

 _Good_ , Minato thinks angrily, continuing to struggle as hard as he can, but he can barely even move his eyes now.

Again.

He’s really starting to hate this Nara.

“I almost died.” Sakura says, stunned, and the Nara huffs out a heavy breath.

“Focus. You need to go.” The man says with dark urgency.

Damn it.

The malicious chakra is still there, not growing but not fading, and Sakura looks in it’s direction with a sobering expression. After a short moment, she turns to the Nara again. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Little low on options, Kura.” The Nara says tightly. “I can’t hold him. Get out of here.”

“They’ll kill you.” Sakura argues weakly, turning her back to Minato so she can face the Nara fully, and the damage his _rasengan_ had done is gone. Only the tattered hole in the back of her dress attests to him having even hit her.

Seriously. That’s just _infuriating._

“So? We pretty much came here to die anyways. _You’re_ about to die.” The Nara points out with a careless shrug that Minato unwillingly imitates.

“I-” Sakura breaks of with a soft sound of protest, and Minato glares at them as hard as he can, waiting for spontaneous death beams to sear them into dust. “We were going to go together.” Sakura says quietly, in a miserable tone that doesn’t fit her character at all.

“I know.” The Nara says just as softly, turning his head - and Minato’s - towards her. “I love you.”

Sakura takes a deep, shuddering breath, and nods sharply. “I love you too.” She says firmly, her voice only trembling a little. “See you on the flip side.”

The Nara flashes her a quick grin and then she’s gone.

Her _shunshin_ is almost as fast as his, damn it.

He’s really starting to feel like anyone who ever called him a prodigy or genius were _liars_.

“Don’t feel bad.” The Nara says, shrugging their shoulders as one. “They’re pretty much inhuman, really. And basically immortal to boot.” Nara pauses then, then gives a vaguely thoughtful hum. “Though I guess this time it might actually stick.” Nara looks at him, then, meeting his gaze lazily but somehow severely. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but, well. Looks like I’m about to be the only one left, and I can’t exactly let you guys get into my head. Wouldn’t want you to undo our hard work. Do me a favor, though. When you figure it out? Don’t tell Dad.”

Before he can even try to figure out what the hell that’s supposed to mean, the Nara lifts his hand (and Minato’s) up in an eerily familiar sign.

 _No,_ Minato thinks desperately, because he’s already damned confused as it is, he doesn’t need to add even _more_ to the pile of inexplicable bullshit these guys have thrown on them.

But the Nara is a complete bastard and says the very thing Minato hadn’t wanted him to. “ _Fuinjutsu: Nouheki.”_ The Nara says, and then he _drops_.

Minato stumbles a little as he abruptly regains control, because his chest is on _fire_ and he’s pretty sure she broke at least four ribs with her punch. He takes a slow, careful breath, makes sure his lungs aren’t going to be punctured, and then looks over at the Nara for a brief instant.

Blood leaks out of his ears and his nose, and the man is completely, utterly still.

Minato has no damn idea how the man knew the ANBU suicide jutsu - but he knows that any information the man might’ve had is gone, now, lost to the careful destruction of his own mind.

“I hate you all.” Minato informs his corpse, breathless and more exhausted than fervent at this point.

He’s literally too used to this to actually be mad about it at this point, and isn’t that just _sad_?

Minato takes a tired breath and leaves him there. Grim and confusing as the encounter was, he has more important things to do - like tracking down that chakra source.

 

But no one ever does manage to find it, because it vanishes only eight minutes after appearing.

 

* * *

 

 

Sakura could honestly, wholeheartedly say that until rather recently, she never expected herself to be in the position of ripping out her own eyeballs.

But by god, she does it.

She yanks them out, tosses them blindly (hah, obviously) and then sticks the Rinnegan eyes in their place. She’d been smart about it, keeping the jar she’d held them in in a small seal tattooed into her wrist. Sasuke had been the one to teach her how, having done much the same to his own arm before it got slightly obliterated during his fight with Naruto. No one found the seal, so no one confiscated the eyes with her little ‘arrest’.

Anyways.

Point is, it was definitely one of the top ten weirdest positions Sakura’s ever put herself in.

Luckily, Sakura’s damn good, and the entire process of removing, replacing, and reconnecting takes all of fifteen seconds, and she’s got new working magic eyes in place before she can even come out of the shock of losing her first pair.

And the magic eyes are pretty damned neat if she says so herself. Who knew?

The Juubi’s chakra, distinctly evil and horribly familiar, flares in the far distance. It’s isn’t truly alive, not yet, she can tell that much easily enough - which means she’s in time.

So Sakura takes a deep breath, releases her seal, and teleports way the hell away from the outskirts of Konoha long before anyone can catch up to her. She refuses to think about what she’s leaving behind. She’ll see him again soon enough, anyways.

She reappears almost on top of Naruto, and holy _shit_ is that a huge chakra drain. She catches herself and staggers on the uneven ground of Madara’s old cave, his cooked up body still stuffed in the far corner where Sasuke had left it, and yep, that’s the Juubi, and Naruto’s tangling with it.

Sasuke, on the other hand, is helping a seven-year old (and super adorable) Utakata to his feet, surrounded by the other jinchuuriki.

Good.

None of them accidentally fed the Juubi too much and died, then. Always a plus, in Sakura’s book.

She takes a deep breath and releases the Yin seal the rest of the way, fully activating the Strength of a Hundred. ‘Her’ eyes burn viciously at the flood of chakra but she ignores that for the moment, instead _shunshin_ ’ing to Sasuke’s side and setting her hand on the back of his exposed neck. He grunts softly at the rush of chakra, crouching down to ready himself.

“He’ll be any second now,” Sakura warns the jinchuuriki, taking them all in one last time.

Han and Roshi from Iwa, Yurata from Taki, B and Yugito from Kumo, and little Utakata from Kiri.

He was seven, and barely a child, but even he looked grim and determined as they all nodded and stepped in front of Sasuke.

They all knew what came next, and they were ready to do it anyways, even Utakata, whom Han had taken aside to explain things a little more thoroughly to.

They were all better people than their villages deserved.

“He’s coming!” Naruto shouts as he blocks another one of the weak Juubi’s swinging attacks, never letting any of them come close to the group. Most of it’s eyes are only barely slitted, having gotten only a taste of the chakra from those bijuu - but two of them are spread wide. Shukaku, who had been sealed in that damn tea kettle from Suna, and Isobu, who had been sealed in a large urn when Sakura and Sasuke interrupted that little ritual.

“Five seconds, Sasuke!”

Sasuke takes a deep, rattling breath and tenses under Sakura’s hand. She reaches down with her other hand to pull his bangs behind his ear for him, freeing his sight.

 

Three.

 

Two...

 

The world distorts, and in the same second that Black Zetsu pops out of the ground, lured by the sensation of his ‘mother’ awakening, Sasuke teleports them all way the fuck away.

 _All_ of them reappear in a frozen wasteland. “Go!” Sakura roars instantly, wasting no time on adjusting to the new dimension, and throws herself at the Juubi.

Black Zetsu _tries_ to intervene, tries to go for Sakura and steal her Rinnegan and chakra so he could _really_ bring back his ‘mother’.

He _tries._

Sasuke and Naruto get there first, and Black Zetsu screams in panicked fury as their hands touch him.

Sakura grabs the Juubi, frantically climbing up onto it’s head, and the jinchuuriki throw themselves forward, grabbing whatever parts they can and pinning them down. They draw on their bijuu, just as Naruto had taught them to, and all six bijuu do everything they can to weigh the monster down.

Naruto and Sasuke focus on sealing Zetsu, and the jinchuuriki hold the Juubi back, preventing its attacks from interrupting the duo.

The six of them hold down the Juubi, and Sakura does her best to help, using the Rinnegan to _force_ the bijuu down, heavier and heavier until it can barely move it’s tails at all. The jinchuuriki hold on tight, and they don’t let go, even as the Juubi uses the contact to drain more and more of their bijuu from them.

By the time they’re done with Zetsu, by the time Sasuke and Naruto can turn around and slam their palms onto the Juubi next, the jinchuuriki are dead and the Juubi’s fully awake. Just in time for the earth to break apart underneath it, lifting the Juubi up in it’s new, forming prison. The Juubi roars it's fury, it's body already starting to shrivel again, and the bijuu start to break free of it in streams of chakra.

The three of them won't be able to leap away from the forming prison in time. Sasuke's sick and Naruto's exhausted, the sealing taking more time - and Sakura gets weaker and weaker by the second, using the Rinnegan to keep the Juubi from retaliating.

But it doesn’t matter.

It _doesn’t matter_ , because they knew that going in, they were _prepared_ , goddamn it.

They _planned_ , and no one was going to die along with them. That meant taking on the Juubi alone, when taking it on with eighty thousand had ended in unimaginable death. The three ( _f_ _our, we were supposed to be four. Shikamaru..._ ) were strong. They were arguably the strongest shinobi to have ever come after Hashirama and Madara. But they were only three, and the Juubi could withstand eighty thousand. They knew from the beginning they wouldn’t be coming out of it alive.

But if that was the price of changing the future, they weren’t about to hesitate. They would die. Their bodies would be sealed with the Juubi’s, that was unavoidable. Sasuke was too sick, Naruto too strained, and Sakura… well. Sakura was going to make _damn sure_ they were the only ones to die, and that meant exhausting herself to death using the Rinnegan.

So the earth lifts them all up, and none of them try to jump away. They follow the plan.

Sakura activates the Rinnegan the rest of the way, and she _screams_ at the horrible, agonizing rush of _not enough chakra, oh god, it burns so much how did he live like this_ , and forces it to obey her commands.

 

It takes everything Sakura has left to reach into Limbo, to grab hold of the six, prematurely snuffed out lives, and to drag them back again.

 

It takes everything Sasuke has left to open his eyes one last time and glare the ex-jinchuuriki back into their dimension.

 

It takes everything Naruto has left to keep powering the seal on his own, because he’s the only one left to.

  
  
The seal finishes, and the dimension suddenly gains itself a moon in the sky.

 

* * *

 

 

The bijuu, freed with the sealing of the statue, are left alone in an unknown dimension unlikely to ever be found again. But they’re _free_ again, and that makes it all worthwhile, as far as they care.

The ex-jinchuuriki wake up together, impossibly alive in spite of all odds, and try to find their new places in the world. B and Yugito return to Kumogakure, welcomed as heroes even if they don’t have their bijuu anymore. They’d been the ‘best jinchuuriki’, and they’d be remembered for that always. It leaves a bitter taste in their mouths because they’d bonded with their bijuu with Naruto’s help. They befriended them, all of them, and they understood that none of them be B had been anything close to a ‘good’ jinchuuriki. But B and Yugito, they still have a home, they still have a life, so they endure.

The others aren’t as lucky. The Iwa shinobi and Utakata refuse to return to their homes, where they had been brutalized and tormented for something that was inflicted upon them. They follow Naruto’s advice posthumously and together they go to Amegakure, where Yahiko welcomes them with open arms.

Yurata, the Seven-Tails ex-jinchuuriki from Takigakure, joins them some months later after Jiraiya runs into him during his travels and points him their way.

Kushina’s left the last jinchuuriki of this world, and though she doesn’t know it, she’s creating a bit of a paradox. When Naruto died, Kurama had reformed in that dimension alongside his fellow bijuu - and alternate dimension or no, that meant there were two Kurama’s at one time. To solve this, when Kushina eventually passes at the ripe old age of a hundred and fifteen, Kurama won’t reform in their dimension. Instead, he’ll simply merge with the body of the alternate dimension Kurama.

With Sakura’s body sealed, the Rinnegan is, yet again, lost forever from the world. And truly forever this time - the Senju clan that had once flourished was at the end of it’s line, with its last strong-blooded member being Tsunade. The ability to combine enough Senju DNA with Uchiha DNA would die with her.

Without Obito twisted by Madara, without Black Zetsu there to spread discord, and without Danzo to handle said discord with the most extreme of extreme prejudice, the Uchiha Clan never does become ostracized by Konoha. The Massacre never happens. They still aren’t the most humble clan, but they remain respected by Konoha at large, and they do their best to keep it that way.

The less peaceful version of the Akatsuki never forms, and thus, the seeds of the Fourth Shinobi World War never get planted. It doesn’t mean there’s peace all across the board, but it most certainly helps enormously.

In fact, Konan and Yahiko take in Utakata as their own, in a world where she once would have been one of the ones to kill him.

Yagura, without ever becoming the host of the Sanbi, is overthrown at the end of Kiri’s long civil war, five years earlier than he might have been. Mei becomes Mizukage five years earlier than she would have, and makes Zabuza - the Mizukage’s successful assassin - her right hand man - with a young Haku as his loyal weapon., and it’s that much easier for her to restore diplomatic relations with Kumo and Konoha, the countries bordering Kiri.

In Sunagakure, a certain boy is saved from ever having to become the hated, tormented host of Shukaku, and is carefully taught by his caring father how to control the Kekkei Genkai they share. Gaara, who would once have been known for his control of sand, is instead known for his control of iron, much like the Third Kazekage.

Naruto Namikaze, who would have grown up alone, orphaned, and loathed, grows up with a loving family and a warm community surrounding him. While he’ll never quite be the brightest crayon in the box, he’s at least a happy one. He might not have the vast chakra reserves of Kurama this time around, but his Uzumaki lineage still keeps him far above average, and he still manages to regularly use some ridiculous jutsus.

(He still graduates almost dead last and is teamed with Sasuke and Sakura, because some things never change, and that’s how it should be.)

All in all, nearly a hundred thousand people would have died to the various events, sixty-five thousand of them in the Fourth War alone, that had ultimately been prevented.

And maybe no one, not a single person in the entire world, will ever know what the four mysteriously appearing and equally mysteriously disappearing shinobi had saved them from - but they wouldn't mind that so much.

 

 

Because, well…

 

 

 

 

That was the whole point of it, now wasn’t it?

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

And in the meantime, Minato is the first to understand the mystery of the four impossibly strong and skilled shinobi.

His suspicion starts when Sakura Haruno is born to half-Uzumaki Kizashi Haruno and his wife, Mebuki. She has soft pink hair and, after the first two months, deep green eyes that grow slowly brighter and brighter. They stop at an eerily familiar shade and it puts him on edge, but the Hokage, while he’s suspicious as is necessary for the job, doesn’t jump to any conclusions.

It grows when Sasuke Uchiha is born, and he sees Itachi lightly tap the babe on his forehead, identical to how mystery-Sasuke had tapped Sakura’s forehead.

It transforms from a vague suspicion to an actual theory when Shikamaru Nara is born and a proud Shikaku shows him a picture of himself as a babe. They were almost identical, and while Shikaku had the luxury of never meeting Mystery Nara face to face, all of a sudden, all Minato can think of is his dying words. _Don’t tell Dad._

They echo in his head for weeks, guilt and anxiety clawing at his mind.

 _We chose this path,_ Sakura had said. _We knew what would happen when we did. We forgive you, and everyone else involved._

 _Don’t tell Dad,_ the Nara had said.

He hesitates on naming his own child.

It terrifies him. If he’d never met the mystery menace, he would’ve jumped at the chance to name his son Naruto after Jiraiya’s books. He doesn’t tell Kushina this, even as she gets steadily more and more annoyed with him for his reluctance to choose a name. He just can’t choose it. If his theory is right, then he is utterly terrified for his son. He doesn’t _want_ him to be Naruto. To be a man with bizarre powers who helps Sakura and Sasuke inflict the kind of damage they did on their people for some unknown reason.

But then he’s born, and the three marks on each cheek are unmistakable and undeniable. His theory, as well, is now undeniable. “Naruto,” He decides after a long and arduous birth and reaffirmation of Kushina’s seal. He stares down at his son’s face, with spiked blonde hair and little whiskers, and there’s no more denying. “Naruto,” he repeats, and finishes in his mind where no one else can possibly overhear it.

 _You won’t have to live the kind of life where you’ll ever feel the need to do what your counterpart did. If they didn’t already make sure of that, then I will,_ Minato vows firmly, running a fingertip down his marked cheeks, awed and shaken all in one.

His life must have been terrible, Minato thinks. All of their lives must have. For them to have felt the need to time travel, to take the bijuus, to kill Madara… Something must have happened. Something terrible. Or many terrible happenings, and they stopped all they could.

Either way, Minato is both painfully grateful, and miserably frightened. If they stopped it… if they hadn’t… there’s no way for him to know.

So he’ll focus on raising Naruto safe and happy.

With any luck, he’ll go on to have such excellent teammates again - and they truly must have been, for them to have joined him in a move so drastic and insane.

“You will be loved,” Minato swears quietly enough that Kushina can’t overhear and tease him for his sentimentality. “You _are_ loved,” He adds fiercely, and shoots Rin and Biwako an overwhelmingly grateful look for helping Kushina through such a hellish birth.

It’s not every day you have to give birth in a cave, but Minato supposes he should just be thankful that the pink-haired menace hadn’t returned solely to keep up the tradition of punching the damn cave open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "This thing of being a hero, about the main thing to it is to know when to die." - Will Rogers
> 
> So this is the end of the story. I hope it wasn't too abrupt - I did the best I could. Honestly, I wasn't expecting the response I got, and your comments inspired me to expand a bit from what had been just a two-shot story. Originally, Team 7 was going to have only two scenes from their POV! I also was going to write a multi-POV epilogue, but then Obito's POV stole the show and now it's four chapters long, going on five. Whoops. Anyway, I dearly hope you'll all forgive me for the bittersweet ending - but try to keep this in mind:
> 
> The only people this story ended sadly for are the ones who were never meant to be in this world in the first place. 
> 
> Sometimes that's the price of change. Sometimes the greatest heroes die with no ever knowing what fate they saved them from to begin with.


End file.
